Council Tax Cost Cutting: reduce your band and grab any discounts Discussion Area

Yaffle_II

Zebedeee wrote: »

A word of caution on this - I had cause to contact the Customer Service Manager and they were even slower! They seemed to add a whole new layer of bureaucracy to the system. I think it might be worth the direct phone call to your LO first and then if still there is no action you'll have to try the CSM!

All the best, and let us know how you get on.

Zebedeee

I contacted my customer service manager after experiencing a stubborn and unhelpful person in the local VOA office and got some invaluable help, and even sent the final 'dossier' of all my evidence to her to process. After 2 refusals over the past couple of months it finally worked!

Anyway, thanks to all those that posted on this and the other council tax forum for ideas and inspiration as they finally caved in and changed our banding from B to A, although they still said they thought we were borderline when the tax came into force. It has been backdated to April 93 and we have lived here since Oct 93 so it will be a nice little bonus when we receive the refund :beer:

I think this has been said many times before, but PLEASE DONT GIVE IN after being refused once or twice, especially if you think you have a cast-iron case! They will give in in the end! But you will have to be thorough with your research and put together all the info you can find! We did and it resulted in a re-banding under 'code 6' which is 'an amendment in the light of additional information', which I presume was the 2 page letter and 7 appendices that I sent to them!

My first post was #2263, if you are interested in our story and have a similar plight then PM me and I will try to reply and let you know how I put the info together that finally swung it.

Thanks again, Yaffle II :T

beingjdc

For those following my saga I had a letter late last month responding to my new appeal, after the one they mislaid, saying I would get a tribunal hearing within five months.

Meanwhile I have found a 3-bedroom flat (mine 2) in a slightly nicer part of the area, 130 square metres (mine 80) with gym, swimming pool, and view of the Thames (I have bookies, greasy spoon, and view of the railway line), on offer for £650 a week (mine £285) and it's in Band E (mine is in F).

Ho hum.

total_minutia

I moved house last year and have rented my old place out. On checking the council tax banding for my rented house I think I have over paid for the 7 years I lived there.
My question is have I missed the boat for rebanding and back pay? :eek:

I currently have new tennants but as owner of the property I'm responsible for council tax between tennants too so not all responsibility relinquished.

Has anyone any advice or suggestions on how I can check where I stand?

Many thanks

Total Minutia :cheesy:

Zebedeee

Hi total minutia. Normally, once you move out you reliquish the right to a refund, but it would all depend whose name is on the bill. If it has remained in your name and the tennants have paid you to pay the council then I'd think you'd be in with a chance. Otherwise, I would have thought you've missed the boat on this one.

Hopefully someone else who knows a bit more about that side of things will come along and help!

Zebedeee

Zebedeee

ChrissyL wrote: »

Mainly the proposal has been deemed invalid because I am outwith the time limit and I am some 11 years out!! The Assessor asks the Valuation Panel to dismiss the appeal and suggests that the committee has no discretion to waive the time limits for lodgeing proposals as set out in the Council Tax (Alteration of Lists and and Appeals)(Scotland) Regulations 1993. It then goes on to say that if the committee believe they have such discretion, this would only be exercised in exceptional circumstances which do not arise in this case.
WHAT IS AN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCE?
The letter then goes on to say that "Although dealing with late appeals lodged under different legislation the Assessor would suggest that the views of the court on a committe's use of discretion in such matters is persuasive."

I have researched all of the houses in my area which are identical to my own (28 in total) and they are all Band D - whilst I am paying Band E. I live in a semi detached house and the adjoining property is Band D. I just find this whole saga frustrating and time consuming, but it has become a matter of principle now!

Any successful court cases that you know of where the statutory time limit was not supported?
Your help would be much appreciated.:j

Hi there. I don't know of any cases where someone won a validity tribunal, but that doesn't have to be the end of it. If you go on the Valuation Tribunal Service website and look up the Valuation Tribunals in your area you may be able to find a case which is simillar to yours. If you can do this you can use it as a reason to gain a Valuation Tribunal. That's what I did and after a lengthy battle and tribunal I came out a winner.

On the face of it, it would seem that your banding probably should be D, although you'll need to get evidence from 1991 to show that it is you that is in the wrong band, not all your neighbours. The VOA can and do put neighbouring houses' bands up in response to a request for rebanding. Get the facts on your side first and then see where you stand.

I quite agree with you about the principle of the matter. It isn't right that there are such anomolies in the system.

Hope that helps!

Zebedeee

Zebedeee

ScotsLass24 wrote: »

I have just put in a "proposal" to lower my tax band, all my neighbours have similar houses but are all band D mine is Band E. My husband and I bought the property back in 1995 and we lived there jointly for a number of years and 3 years ago I moved out (husband stayed!) and I have now just moved back in and hubby is away. Will I be able to backdate claim to when we purchased the house or how will it be seen. There is also a "tip" posted in the FQA of the assors site stating...
I'm not happy with my banding. Can I appeal it?

An appeal against the banding of your house is described in the legislation as a 'proposal'. The circumstances in which you can lodge a proposal are limited by the legislation.
If you became the taxpayer within the last six months, or the Assessor has changed the banding in that time, you may make a proposal to have the banding altered. If you have been in the house longer than six months, and there has been no change in the band since it was fixed in 1993, then you can only make a proposal if there has been a change in your house or its surroundings which you consider has reduced its value.
Does this mean I can only claim back 6 months??? HELP I am lost to what all this means.

Whew! Complicated! I would have thought, although I stand to be corrected, that it would all depend whose name has been on the CT bill. If yours, or hubby's or both names have been on the bill throughout then I can't see why you can't have a go.

The six months refers to the time period you get after moving in and becoming the tax payer to make a request for rebanding. However, if you read through this thread you'll see that there are lots of ways in if you are past the six months. Some VOAs are more helpful than others and will readily reband your property once you present them with evidence to show that the band is incorrect.

Hope that helps!

Zebedeee

Zebedeee

beingjdc wrote: »

For those following my saga I had a letter late last month responding to my new appeal, after the one they mislaid, saying I would get a tribunal hearing within five months.

Meanwhile I have found a 3-bedroom flat (mine 2) in a slightly nicer part of the area, 130 square metres (mine 80) with gym, swimming pool, and view of the Thames (I have bookies, greasy spoon, and view of the railway line), on offer for £650 a week (mine £285) and it's in Band E (mine is in F).

Ho hum.

Well done, beingjdc. Get as much evidence as you can on your side and we wish you all the very best. We'll help on here if we can!

Zebedeee

aer197

I’m after some advice on if I should challenge my banding or not – what do you think…?

5 months ago I moved into a 2 bed mid-terrace in Salisbury, Wiltshire. I’m in one of 4 pretty much identical terraced houses (one is an end terrace – they all have very slightly larger extensions built onto the back of the house) A month or so before I moved in I saw the details of one of the other mid-terrace houses, and on moving in to my house was surprised to be a band C and not a band B like this other house. Turns out that homeowner successfully got re-banded down from a C in 1993. My house and the other 2 are band C.

My house has been sold 4 times since 1991. For 80,000 in Jul 2001, for 128,500 in Feb 2002, for 187,000 in Jan 2004 and I paid 193,000 in Nov 2007. The house was renovated in 2001 and had a new kitchen put in where the dining room was (ie changing a dining room and very small kitchen to a kitchen and a utility room) and a very small internal bathroom put into one of the 2 bedrooms (makes it a small double and a bathroom from a large double).

Of Martin’s 2 tests I sort of pass the neighbour test as one of the other’s has been re-banded down and this happened close to 1993 (ie hopefully more reliable than looking back 17 years and trying to work out the price in 1991). On the valuation test I sort of both pass and fail – if you look at the 2001 sale I factor back to a band B, the next 2 sales factor back to a band D and my sale goes back to a band C.

Given the only partial “passing” of the 2 tests do you think it’s worth appealing. I feel there is some risk as 2 of the sale prices factored back put me in band D and there have been some changes to the house since it was sold at a probable band B level in 2001.

[FONT=&quot]Sorry for the length of this post – I’m finding it all a bit complicated so wanted to put all aspects down. Am I likely to be successful? How much risk is there that I could be put up a band?[/FONT]

Zebedeee

Hi aer197 The good news is that you are still inside the first six months, so they have to take you seriously! Your neighbour being rebanded down to a B definately goes in your favour too and, as you say, so much more reliable than extrapolating past values from the calculators! To be honest, the value calculators are of limited value - as you have seen they give varying results. They also don't carry much weight in a tribunal. You could ideally do with getting hold of some sales figures as near as possible to 1991. Try and see if you can find selling prices in copies of old newspapers in your town library. They are often stored on microfiche and the library staff will help you find what you need. The more of this type of evidence you can find the better your case will be.

It looks to me like you might have a runner here. Do some more research and come back on here if you need any more help.

Zebedeee

ChrissyL

Zebedeee wrote: »

Hi there. I don't know of any cases where someone won a validity tribunal, but that doesn't have to be the end of it. If you go on the Valuation Tribunal Service website and look up the Valuation Tribunals in your area you may be able to find a case which is simillar to yours. If you can do this you can use it as a reason to gain a Valuation Tribunal. That's what I did and after a lengthy battle and tribunal I came out a winner.

On the face of it, it would seem that your banding probably should be D, although you'll need to get evidence from 1991 to show that it is you that is in the wrong band, not all your neighbours. The VOA can and do put neighbouring houses' bands up in response to a request for rebanding. Get the facts on your side first and then see where you stand.

I quite agree with you about the principle of the matter. It isn't right that there are such anomolies in the system.

Hope that helps!

Zebedeee

The trouble is, I have looked on the Valuations Tribunal Website and it only seems to give a selection of cases, all of which are non domestic. The web page I am looking at is
http://www.lands-tribunal-scotland.org.uk/valuation.html
Any other suggestions of where successful tribunal decisions can be?

Thanks,
ChrissyL