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

lincroft1710

Sonar - BTW why are you certain your house would have been worth no more than £106K in Apr 91

vivatifosi

Hi John,

When I was working on my appeals I found out pretty quickly that the VOA (and no doubt its equivalent in Scotland) do not pay any attention to the Nationwide data or any other derived average data. Having subsequently done my own pricing research where I live I can understand why. For example, I looked at the properties that I was comparing prices for vs the prices in 1991 to 1994 (which was the date I needed to compare with) the change varied by as much as 50%, depending on factors such as how pretty the house was (price more likely to bounce back quickly), whether or not it was ex-local authority (price less likely to come back), whether it was a flat (price less likely to come back), or worse still a local authority flat (price fell off a cliff...), whether or not the house was new (market behaved more bouyantly due to priced in incentives etc). Unfortunately all those variables are added together into one average. Then you may not even get the prices for the town, you may just have a figure for the county. Again, some towns are more desirable than others, etc. So to be fair I can understand why they did this.

However I was able to use the newspaper archives at my local library to get the information I needed. It took a long time and you only got selling prices, but that gave me enough to go on. Using that and the local knowledge of other householders (we worked together to get the information we needed as most people have their own piece of the puzzle, but not the whole puzzle) we were able to get rebands on over 80 houses, which is, to date, the largest ever reband where I live.

So if you do intend to take on the SAA you need to start from the fact that they hold all the cards in terms of having information to hand and to put in research to get you back to a 1991 date. Given that the house was sold in 1980, look for others that were sold around the end of 1990 and early 1991 by looking through the paper archives. Don't just look in your street, but look for similar houses nearby (this is particularly important if there aren't many similar models you can use to compare to). As I mentioned, also speak to the neighbours. Has anything happened to your neighbourhood that may have made houses worth less now than they were in 1991? Do any of them remember houses being for sale at around the time CT was introduced? Changes in the local environment that could have impacted on value may also be taken into consideration (though they need to be something of the magnitude of they've built a Tesco's at the end of the road as opposed to the family next door has an ASBO, etc).

Here I can read the Council Tax manual for England, don't know about Scotland, but its very much worth skimming so you understand on what grounds you can and can't appeal as this will help you make a better case.

Good luck!

lincroft1710

John

I've copied this from SAA website :

The Assessor is not required to place an actual value on each property but has to demonstrate that its likely sale price would have been within the range of values in the relevant band.

All he has to do is show that similar houses in the area to yours were selling for between £106,000 and £212,000 as at 1 April 1991.

Assessors do not rely on house price indices to adjust sale prices over time
Unless the index takes account of the specific features of the local market conditions prevailing at the relevant dates price adjustment in this way will be inaccurate.

Clearly they won't entertain a probable 1991 value by if it has been calculated by using 1980 and 2007 sale prices.

Assessors apply the Comparative Principle of Valuation. This relies on comparing the physical and geographic etc features of the property to be valued with those of houses which actually sold around the valuation date (1 April 1991).

Which is what we did in the VOA. In England/Wales Council Tax appeals are heard by the Valuation Tribunal and VOA are expected to provide sales evidence to support bandings and I would presume the Valuation Appeals Committee require the Assessor to supply similar info.

The only possible way forward is to follow the very comprehensive advice given by vivatifosi, and you are certainly going to have an uphill struggle as the Assessor seems firmly rooted in his opinion.

mollythelolly

Hi.
Just wondered if anyone can help.... I followed the instructions and checked out my mum and dads property for the council tax only to find that they were they one one's in the street that are paying a band G and all the rest are the other two street next to them (with bigger houses) are paying a band E/F.
Mum and Dad moved in in 1986 and payed £75,500. Checked out the other hosue prices in 91 and were no wer near the £160 and above.
Phoned the local valuations officer and they took note and said that they would check it. A couple of months later they wrote to them saying that it was in the correct band based on there findings.
They were then told that they had no right to appeal against there decision other then a formal proposal. Having looked at the formal proposal they do not fit into any of the categories.
Is there anything else I can do - I feel that they have been treated unfairly and that this hasnt been looked into at all. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - they are pensioners and a band drop to fall in line with all of the neighbours would greatly help them.

lincroft1710

Molly - have a look at Vivatifosi's post above (no. 2735), good advice re searching for 1991 house prices. Valuation Office Agency now seems to expect council taxpayers to prove band is incorrect. If you think you have been unfairly treated you can contact Customer Service Manager whose name/address on VOA website.

jojo1964

Im not sure if anybody else has had a similar situation to this, so any advive would be appreciated.

My mum lives in a block of 4 terraced houses, she is end of terrace with a side entrance, the 2 houses in the middle have rear access but no side access, and the house on the end has side access also, the 2 houses in the middle are in band B, while the 2 houses on the end (including my mums) are both band C.

The only difference between the 4 properties is the fact that the 2 end of terrace have a side access, everything else is the same.

Has anybody had a similar experience, and would it seem worthwhile appealing the tax banding?

lincroft1710

jojo - came across this lots of times whilst working in Vauation Office Agency. End terrace houses would generally sell for slightly more than inner terrace, especially where there is side access. Band B/C break is £52,000 so it could be that ET houses sold for £53K around 1 Apr 1991 (valuation date for Council Tax purposes) whereas IT may have sold for £51K.

Cases where sales of key properties very close to band break have caused VOA endless problems, especially where similar properties involved. It won't hurt to check that band is correct, there are however strict time limits on making appeals, check VOA website for details.

Problems_2

Whaoooo !!!!!!!! Thought I MUST advise you all of the result to our claim for a "Review" (which I contacted the forum about here -

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=278090&page=135&highlight=local+occupancy )

Well, yesterday afternoon, the local Valuation Officer telephoned me with ABSOLOUTELY FANTASTIC NEWS !!! YES - they have agreed to lower our band from a Band F to a Band E !!!!!!!!!!! Even better is that they are backdating the refund back to when we first moved into the property after it was built, in late 1994 !!! I have calculated (from the figures given to me by the local council tax dept.) that the total difference between a Band F and a Band E, going back to 1994, will be approx. £3408.39p ! WHAT A XMAS PRESENT ! The actual refund will be slightly less though I think, as we did not start the council tax until approx. Oct/Nov 1994, so we won't receive a whole years refund for the 1994/95 period, plus we now pay over 10 months, and so still have approx. 4 months of this years tax to pay, so won't obviously receive a full years refund for this 08/09 c.tax year either....

BUT we are absoloutely ESTATIC ! and we send you all a HUGE "THANK YOU" to all who have offered their advice over the past 6/8 weeks, for taking the time and effort to reply to our queries... Many thanks to Martin too, for creating such a brilliant website!

MANY MANY THANKS AGAIN
Problems

vivatifosi

Hey problems,

That's great news. Yours was a very complex case and I'm glad that it worked out for you. Well done!

lincroft1710

Well done, problems. I'd be interested to know what reason VOA gave for reduction, but knowing VOA, they'll probably be non committal and just say they thought original band too high