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

competitionscafe

I was sent a bill for council tax for a completely different property saying I was overdue and they were taking me to court, eventually after several red letters they admitted that they had made a mistake and withdrew the charges. I also pointed out that I had lived alone in the flat for 1 year and written to inform of this but had never got the 25% discount. They replied regarding the other property saying that they had "confused my name with someone with a similar name" but never replied regarding the 25%. Therefore I am stil paying full council tax (£185 per month) which with the rent (£750) and bills (£150) takes my monthly living expenses way over £1000 - as they ignored my letters regarding the 25% off is there any way to reclaim this?

Galleon_2

Just thought you all might like to know that someone we know appealed to the council and successfully got her house put UP to the next band! Think Hyacinth Bucket (Keeping Up Appearances). This is true, not a spoof.

md_14uk

My house along with the other 17 in my street are all banded C. I have just checked the 1991 house price calculator which values it at £64,000, £4,000 below the rate for a B banding. I would like some advice on whether you think this is worth an appeal or not?

I'm quite freindly with the neighbours and think I could pursuade 10 of the 18 homes to appeal.

CIS

I was sent a bill for council tax for a completely different property saying I was overdue and they were taking me to court, eventually after several red letters they admitted that they had made a mistake and withdrew the charges. I also pointed out that I had lived alone in the flat for 1 year and written to inform of this but had never got the 25% discount. They replied regarding the other property saying that they had "confused my name with someone with a similar name" but never replied regarding the 25%. Therefore I am stil paying full council tax (£185 per month) which with the rent (£750) and bills (£150) takes my monthly living expenses way over £1000 - as they ignored my letters regarding the 25% off is there any way to reclaim this?

There should no problem getting your 25% , we allow people to come in to our Customer Service Centres, write in, or telephone in.

I would suspect that your council has a customer service centre for you to attend. Pop in and see them and their shouldn't be a problem with the 25% getting taken off.

From your profile, you live in Edinburgh, if you come under the city council - this page has the details to visit them in person
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/a-z/AZ_council_tax

mikeyr1978

Hello everyone, first time forum user here and I'm very interested about this council tax article. My situation seems to differ from the other posts I've read so I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice.

Myself and my fiancee bought our flat for £90,000 in December 2004. It is in a quite cul-de-sac which contains flats as well as houses. We were put in Band D (68,000-88,000) which I thought was OK considering how much we paid for it - I didn't realise at the time that the bandings were based on 1991 house prices. The cul-de-sac is only about 7 years old so obviously wasn't around when the initial 1991 valuations were done. After reading Martin's excellent article I did some investigating. At first I was quite disappointed as every single flat in the street is also on Band D but just for fun I checked what my house price would have been in 1991 using the Nationwide calculator and found this to be around 32,000 - which would make it Band A. I even valued the most recently sold flat in our street and also found this to be less than the 40,000 Band A threshold.

Would it be worth me chasing for a band reduction even though all of the other flats are in the same band? Are newer than 1991 properties valued any differently as they weren't around back then?

Any help would be most welcome.

Thanks

heinz57_2

Hi All,

I've just moved house and have been reading with great interest the Council tax article and the potential for re-classication, especially given my new home if Band F

Trouble is the house I've moved into along with every other house in the surrounding area are resonably new houses, having been built in 1997, 6 years after the assement.

Following the steps on published here I have been able to confirm that all neighboring houses are in the same band (F), so no dice there.

However, according to the Nationwide calculator house prices would have been around 100k in 1991, comfortably within Band E.

Based on this could I assume that all these houses were retrospectively over valued in 1997, and does anyone think there is a case to try and get my house re-classified?

Thanks for everyones help in advance?

Stu666

Well the place I live in was built in 1996 and I've just had mine changed from B to A. The reason listed was because of a valuation error, so I see no reason why houses built post 1993 should be any different.

book_lover

Having followed all the steps on the article page, I discovered that to fall into band E (which we are in) our house should have been worth £88k - £120k in 1991. However, I am aware that in 1996 or so it was bought for £74k and as it had been sitting empty since 1991, was unlikely to have been worth any more then. It was in a terrible state of repair. It has been made livable but nothing much more than that - kitchen very basic (home made!) and bathroom not changed - from the 50s!

This suggests we should be in Band D. However, the article also prompts comparison with similar neighbours. Unfortunately this is hard as we're in a farmhouse and neighbours are an unconverted (as yet) steading, some new builds at bottom of track (Band F) and various farmhouses and cottages dotted about, which vary from band C (for a tiny one) to band G (for quite a grand one). Similar to ours are farmhouses which are either E or D..... but we don't live on a street with identical neighbours so this seems ambiguous.

I tried to call the number provided through link on the article and got the wrong person (Valuator rather than Assessor). He said he had worked with them for a few weeks and is fairly sure that they will say that as we are well outwith the 6 months, it's a no-go (he thinks this was their common line when he worked for them).

So, I plan to phone them in the morning BUT the Scottish Assessors webpage (http://www.saa.gov.uk/valuationappeals.html then click on "More" at the bottom) says the following:

Error
Section 3(4) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975 provides that an appeal may be made at any time on the grounds "that there is such an error in the entry as is referred to in Section 2(1)(f)" of the Act.

Section 2(1)(f) provides;
". . . the assessor for any valuation area shall, as respects that area, at any time while the valuation roll is in force, alter the roll to correct any error of measurement, survey or classification or any clerical or arithmetical error in any entry therein;"

So presumably if there is resistence, I could quote this to them? My husband thinks this means anytime OUTWITH the 6 months (rather than within it, which is meaningless).

Do you think we have a case?

Many thanks in advance

(we're in Scotland btw)

Altarf

md_14uk wrote:

My house along with the other 17 in my street are all banded C. I have just checked the 1991 house price calculator which values it at £64,000, £4,000 below the rate for a B banding. I would like some advice on whether you think this is worth an appeal or not?

mikeyr1978 wrote:

Myself and my fiancee bought our flat for £90,000 in December 2004. It is in a quite cul-de-sac which contains flats as well as houses. ...
At first I was quite disappointed as every single flat in the street is also on Band D...
Would it be worth me chasing for a band reduction even though all of the other flats are in the same band?

heinz57 wrote:

Trouble is the house I've moved into along with every other house in the surrounding area are resonably new houses, having been built in 1997, 6 years after the assement.

Following the steps on published here I have been able to confirm that all neighboring houses are in the same band (F), so no dice there.

If it helps I was in a fairly similar situation as all of you. My house was part of a new development of 40 houses built in 1998 in an existing residential area, which had been steadily developed since the early 1980s. All the houses in this new development that were similar to mine were the same band. However checking properties around the area (in a 1/2 mile radius) showed some inconsistencies.

So I used the house price calculator to gain an impression of what the house prices would have been. This actually showed that it was right on the border between the bands. As an aside I would not use any house price calculator as the sole basis for any appeal.

I printed off a list of the bandings for the neighbouring streets, and took a walk around to see which properties fell in my band, and which in the band below. It appeared that properties that existed in 1991 fell in the lower band (unless they were substantially larger than mine) and properties built more recently all fell in the higher band.

I used the estate agents adverts from the 1991 local newspapers (in the town library archive where they were all on microfiche), to establish actual advertised prices in 1991, and I used current estate agent listings from Rightmove etc to calculate the floorspace of the lower banded properties, to make sure they were the same size as mine.

A week before the tribunal, the VOA agreed and lowered the band. My house is now the only post 1991 house of its type in the area with the lower band, so it can be done, but it took a fair amount of legwork and research and persistence with the VOA (including two postponed tribunals).

In answer to other questions, it doesn't matter when the house was built, "The basis of valuation for a dwelling which is not used for any business purpose is the amount which, subject to certain assumptions, it would have sold for on the 'open market' by a 'willing vendor' on 1 April 1991."
http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/the_starting_point.htm

book_lover wrote:

Having followed all the steps on the article page, I discovered that to fall into band E (which we are in) our house should have been worth £88k - £120k in 1991. However, I am aware that in 1996 or so it was bought for £74k and as it had been sitting empty since 1991, was unlikely to have been worth any more then. It was in a terrible state of repair. It has been made livable but nothing much more than that - kitchen very basic (home made!) and bathroom not changed - from the 50s!

This suggests we should be in Band D.

In England & Wales (sorry I don't know about Scotland), strange (and annoying) as it may seem, the actual state of repair of the property is not considered for the valuation, but whether it has been modernised is. Have a look here for more -

http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/state_of_repair.htm

book_lover

thanks Altarf that helps. However the price calculator working backwards comes up with the same figure - well, 72k for 1991. Where do I go from here? Do I bother?