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

amajoh

not posted before so hope this is right
I have just tried to check the council tax bands for my neighbours houses on the VOA site but our house isn't listed, our road has about 100 houses or so and the site only brings up even numbers up to about 18. Why is this? the post code is the one on our council tax letter.

lincroft1710

viva - took an hour to write post -was watching Mutual Friends at same time, otherwise I would have posted about 9.30!

Auders - semis and detached can be correctly in same band, if assessor has good evidence to support reinstatement of the higher band he should show it to you. At very least there should be some good 1991 sales of similar size nearby semis, if these are close to band startpoint figure or they are not exactly similar size or are in better area you may have argument that reduced band was indeed correct. When you get the evidence or a date for Tribunal hearing please repost and I'll see if I can help.

amajoh - for various reasons postcodes are not always correct in Council Tax list. Go back to website and enter just street and town and if you want just your own band, your house number, it will then give you info requested.

causey25

causey25 wrote: »

Hi there

According to the Valuation Agency website 34 of the 40 identical semis on our road are Band C (including ourselves).

Then there are 6 that are listed as Band B - the only difference in the listing is that these 6 houses all have an "effective date" of 1st April 1993.

The "effective date" column is blank on the listings for 34 Band C houses.

2 of the Band B houses are the semi adjoining ours & the house directly opposite.

Does anyone know what causes these different entries to the listing? Is it simply that these 6 neighbours have all successfully contested their banding at various points & had their claims backdated to 1/4/93 or is that simply too good to be true?

Thanks

Ok I've just spoken to the local VOA & am a bit confused. He basically said that they would do a review but that he thought the band Bs were probably a mistake or the rest of the street would have been made a B aswell at the time & that our neighbours would probably get their band raised :eek: .

When I looked on the VOA website the Band Bs on our street had an 'effective date' of 1/4/93. clicking on the 'banding history' for these properties shows be the following
- Band - C
- Composite - No
- Court Code - Blank
- Effective - Blank
- Valuation List - 1993

So they were band C originally & got changed to a band B - right? The chap on the phone wouldn't tell me why the bands were different - if there had been an appeal or not from our neighbours - he just said it could be a mistake & they could have their band changed back to C.

He did advise me to look at local papers from 1991 - which is my next step - but that is frustrating because surrounding roads are just that 20-40k nicer than ours & I will probably struggle to find a house from our small road for sale around that time. They have access to actual selling prices from 1991 so I don't know if he's just sending me off on a wild goose chase or not ( they can't share that info for Data Protection reasons apparently - although its strangely easy to find that info for more recent years).

Anyway, I'm a bit freaked at the thought of messing up our neighbours banding now. (he really enjoyed telling me that bit).

From the VOA website info & the officer's comments - would you keep going or back off? :question:

Auders

Lincroft- thanks. I will keep you up-to-date!

Zebedeee

Hi causey25. I think you are going to have to put the work in and go back to the 1991 newspapers. They are possibly the only 'solid' evidence you can get your hands on.

The tone of the list, the majority being C, does go against your case so it is a bit of an uphill battle. You could find that the Bs all go up to Cs. The VOA love to do that. That said, if you can find solid sales evidence from 1991 to support you they would have difficulty arguing against it.

All I can say is do your homework well before making an further moves. The VOA like to play their cards close to their chest and your need to collect your evidence carefully before deciding where to go with this.

Zebedeee

Sioux_Chief

Now that the value of houses has been reduced, should not the ratable value be reasessed? After all, if the value of property is on the up and a Revaluation comes up, who pays more? We do.
Does anyone know when the next scheduled Revaluation of Domestic Property is due?

vivatifosi

Hi Sioux Chief,

The council tax band is based on the value of the property at the date that the antecedent valuation date (AVD) was set. The AVD was set on the 1st April 1991, and house prices have gone up, down, stagnated, behaved differently in different areas, different types of property have become popular, etc since then.

My understanding is that the last revaluation for England was shelved, it was due to occur in 2005 with the valuations applied from 2007. Its a bit of a hot potato, so can't imagine another one is about to happen, unless of course some minister finds a way to charge us more as a stealth tax because the country is so poor at the moment.

amajoh

lincroft1710
Thanks for that info, should have thought of that myself really. Unfortunately looks as if similar houses in neighbourhood are the same band as me, it was worth checking though. The valuation site does give a valuation for 1991 which would have put us in a lower band though, not sure if worth pursuing or not. Would things like a conservatory or changing a garage into a room make a difference, I guess so if the valuation of the house would be more, some houses have had alot of alterations round our way but not many seem to have had a council tax banding review.
thanks again

causey25

Zebedeee wrote: »

Hi causey25. I think you are going to have to put the work in and go back to the 1991 newspapers. They are possibly the only 'solid' evidence you can get your hands on.

The tone of the list, the majority being C, does go against your case so it is a bit of an uphill battle. You could find that the Bs all go up to Cs. The VOA love to do that. That said, if you can find solid sales evidence from 1991 to support you they would have difficulty arguing against it.

All I can say is do your homework well before making an further moves. The VOA like to play their cards close to their chest and your need to collect your evidence carefully before deciding where to go with this.

Zebedeee

Thanks Zebedeee - I will tread carefully - although I'm afraid a review may already have been prompted by my initial enquiry anyway...

I have spoken to the library & they do have 'fiche copies of the local paper so I shall do some digging & hope I get lucky.

lincroft1710

Hi amajoh - if the value of a basic house with garage was towards top of band, then value of same house with proper upvc conservatory and garage conversion could be pushed into bottom of next band. This is more pertinent in the lower bands where the band spans are small.

vivatifosi - reval was scheduled for 2007 based on 2005 prices. Its cancellation was not met with joy by VOA staff, who were hoping to have a more accurate Valuation List second time round. Only upside was that those like me who had served a very long sentence could apply for (in my case) extremely early retirement.

Causey - there is no reason why guy at VOA can't say "house similar to yours, in A street, of B sq metres, with C beds sold for £x in month 1991".
He doesn't have to give house number and could even say "nearby street". I would frequently do this when I couldn't quote exact address. IMHO, 17 yrs on from '91 confidentiality is not so important now as it was say 10 yrs ago. If VOA guy is cagey about supporting evidence, it maybe inconclusive or conjectural.