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

vivatifosi

Hi Fergal,

Funnily enough the proportions that you have mentioned are very similar to where I live. One third of our houses were in band D, two thirds in band E. We were successful in overturning our band (that was in England), and this led on to a second appeal where we had another 50 houses rebanded.

I'm not up on the Scottish system, but I would say that it is worth appealing to your version of the VOA. However, you will need better starting evidence. Can you ask around your neighbours and find out whether any of them sold their houses in or around 1991, when council tax was brought in? Can you get copies of local papers from back then from your local library and look up the sale prices? This should give you enough evidence to build your case and approach for a rebanding.

I don't think that the council tax non-payment is a factor, though I'm not sure. It should be the local council that you pay tax to, while the assessment is done by the SAA, so at least there is a disconnect.

Wolfie_17

Hi Everyone,
Just looking for a bit of advice.
I've just started looking at my council tax bill & I was convinced that I must be in the wrong band, but the calculator disagrees!
I bought my house brand new from the builder in July 1997 for £75000 & have always been in band D.
My initial thought was that if band D is £68k-£88k then I must be in the wrong band as a house worth £75k in 1997 must be worth less than £68k in 1991, surely??
The calculator assumes -3.07% change & a value of £72696 so band D is correct.
Did 3 bed detached houses in East Mids only go up in value by £2304 between 1991 & 1997 (£384 per year!), that cant be correct can it?
So the question is, should I ignor the calculator & still raise the question with the VOA?
Any advice would be greatly appriciated.

Zebedeee

Hi Wolfie. The calculator is only a guide, and a very rough one at that. The best thing you can do is to compare your property with other simillar ones close by to see if you are all in the same band. Secondly, if you go to the library you will be able to find a record of the prices being asked for properties in 1991 in old newspaper archives. See if you can find houses simillar to yours and the price they were being sold for then. That will give you a better idea of the band you should be in.

If you have a look back at some of my early posts you'll see that new houses are often over-banded as they sell for more than their true property value ie. the builders sell them at a premium simply because they are new, and also because they have a new fitted kitchen, carpets etc. These extras don't increase the actual value of the house so shouldn't increase the band, but often the VOA don't take this into account.

Hope that helps!

Zebedeee

Wolfie_17

Thanks Zebedeee,
I have been doing some research on the VOA web site.
Firstly they seem to have my post code wrong along with the other 20ish houses in my close, only my next door neighbour's is correct! The rest of ours relate to a road two roads away! (I have emailed them to point this out)

It is difficult to get an acurate picture of the banding on this estate, it was built circa 1996/7 next to an estate of circa 1960/70's. The builders have done a good job of inter mixing 2/3 bed semi & 3/4/5 detached houses as seems to be the modern way, so much so that there are band B houses next to band F houses! However all the houses of the same style as mine appear to be band D, as is mine.

I will take your advice & do some more research at the library to find something similar if possible.

I'm still convinced I'm in the wrong band as there are three houses in my row, mine being the smallest & band D, next door are bigger & band E as is the much bigger house next to them.

The plot thickens!

lincroft1710

Wolfie, I used to work for VOA dealing with CT appeals. 1997 prices were on a par moreorless with those of '91 in my area, but different parts of country AND different house types took longer/shorter time to return to these levels after the price crash. I have found building society price indices to be on average 15% inaccurate as I was able to check actual selling price of same house on different dates and compare with their guestimate.

Incorrect postcodes won't affect banding as these are not used by VOA in banding and they cannot use them for looking for 1991 sales as the database for that period doesn't contain postcodes. VOA are usually informed of postcode by council, so incorrect postcode isn't usually their fault, and yes it is a common occurrence.

If the bigger houses are Band E, and yours is Band D then that seems OK, certainly I would be worried if it was the other way round! You can ask VOA if there have been appeals on the other houses which are same type as yours. But if there have been and they were settled at Band D, then you're out of luck I'm afraid.

Fergal1982

vivatifosi wrote: »

Hi Fergal,

Funnily enough the proportions that you have mentioned are very similar to where I live. One third of our houses were in band D, two thirds in band E. We were successful in overturning our band (that was in England), and this led on to a second appeal where we had another 50 houses rebanded.

I'm not up on the Scottish system, but I would say that it is worth appealing to your version of the VOA. However, you will need better starting evidence. Can you ask around your neighbours and find out whether any of them sold their houses in or around 1991, when council tax was brought in? Can you get copies of local papers from back then from your local library and look up the sale prices? This should give you enough evidence to build your case and approach for a rebanding.

I don't think that the council tax non-payment is a factor, though I'm not sure. It should be the local council that you pay tax to, while the assessment is done by the SAA, so at least there is a disconnect.

Thanks vivatifosi. I'll need to look into what evidence I can supply/get. I could possibly get details from the NetHousePrices site for property sales in 1991.

I could also possibly talk to the assessors office for scotland, and see what kind of evidence they require.

vivatifosi

Hi Fergal,

nethouseprices is not as good. As lincroft says, they can be inaccurate by 15% (easily enough to chuck the price out by a band) and in my experience neither the VOA nor the VTS paid any attention to them. You would be much better sticking to good, local evidence. I used adverts from my local paper for my tribunals and this has always worked for me as it is more accurate.

Edit: I'm talking about all the house price indexes that you can trend backwards and forwards. Nethouseprices etc are fine back to 2000 as are all the other free house price search tools, but house prices prior to that not available, and that's where it gets a bit theoretical and the big margins of error creep in. Sorry, didn't make that clear.

Audrey1205

Hi

I live in Scotland and have been challenging my council tax code for 6 months of letters. My neighbour and I have identical semi detached houses my neighbour is a C and I am a D. I have been sent numerous letters saying they are dealing with my request the last letter is from the valuation panel offering me 3 options
To appeal with an oral hearing
To appeal with written represenation
To withdraw my appeal

I am at a loss of what to do now as I am not confident of the legal reasons why I am appealing. I think in Scotland its just a long drawn out process to put you off claiming.

What should I do?

lincroft1710

Unfortunately you haven't given us much info on which to judge the strength of your case. If they are exactly identical i.e. yours hasn't any extensions, loft conversions, garages, off road parking, which your neighbour doesn't have then it would seem one of them is incorrectly banded. HOWEVER - it could be that theirs is too low. Has theirs ben reduced for any reason?

As my CT experience is with the English system, I can only give you basic advice.

Firstly investigate the bands of other similar size s/d houses in the neighbourhood. Has the assessor given you details of any houses he thinks are comparable? If you do wish to take the matter to a hearing, appear in person rather than send a written submission.

mtem74

Hi
Stupid question I feel, but hopefully someone can answer it. We bought our house last year but being in Scotland it was an over offers thing. So do I take the value of my home to be the price I paid or what the previous owners put it on the market for?

Also I've done some of the checks suggested.. The nationwide calc suggests my house should be around a Band D (currenlty a Band F booo hooooo) so I'm guessing somethings wrong there...

Trouble is the house is fairly new, built around 2000 I think so getting a 91 valuation is nigh impossible.

Checked the SAA.gov site and it shows similar houses all as a Band F, although they also give the bigger houses the same banding ???

using the quick guide it would seem to suggest not worth the risk to get but part of me feels we're in the wong banding (yep, the cheapskate part of me haha)

Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreicated