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

StephenL

Zebedeee wrote: »

Hi StephenL. Have you checked the VOA website to see when the rebanding is effective from? They may have rebanded back to the time when Council Tax began, or they may have started it at the time the new people moved in, or at some point in between. If it covers the time your mother-in-law lived there then she should get a refund of the overpayment. The Council Tax department of the local council should issue any refund.

HTH
Zebedeee

:beer:
Thanks zebedee and lincroft 1710 for both of your comments. Checked the website and it has been backdated to 1993.
I will encourage MIL to be very persistant.

ortolickus

This is such a long thread, i apologise if this has been mentioned before.
I've been meaning to look at rebanding for years now and finally got around to it today, but i seem to have fallen at the first.
I was surprised at how high my property was valued in Q2 1991 using the Nationwide calculator, so i decided to use some actual figures.
I sold a house in Q3 1999 for £140K in Guildford (outer south-east, i presume)
I calculated the value for Q2 1994 - The calculator said that the property was worth £92K at that time
I actually bought the property in Q2 1994 for £68K!
OK, the house was a bit sruffy, but the only work i did was to install CH and redecorate. Allowing for this the calculator seems to be at least 20% out. And if it is this inaccurate, (in the council's favour, as it were), is there a more reliable way to pursue my claim?
Or am i doing something daft with the calculator?
Any helpful comments appreciated.

Edit: Actually the purchase was at the end of Q1 in 1994 and i should have used the outer metropolitan region. The figue is therefore £88.8k, not £92K. Still a big difference though.

lincroft1710

Ortolickus - It is the Valuation Office Agency who assess properties for CT, not the council. They have access to virtually every sale price in the country so do not need to use calculators to find out what properties sold for in 1991.

Your post proves the inaccuracies of these calculators, but in view of house's condition you probably paid less than going rate, so may not be quite so inaccurate as you originally thought, although my experience has been around 10 - 15%.

It may be more prudent to look at bands of other similar houses near where you live, but bear in mind if you do find a similar house with lower band, it may be wrong - not always, but it does happen

guppy

As I understand it, 1994 was also the bottom of the market in the South East...a seller of a "scruffy" property at that time might well have had to take what they could get for it. Sounds like a bargain anyway, was it a repossession?

vivatifosi

Good to see you back guppy!

blossom111_2

Please help.

I am band D council tax. We brought our house nearly 2 years ago. checking back on our deeds etc I found that our house was sold for £49300 in January 1991. I obviously have proof of this and in the same year the properties were banded. The sale price would make us a band B?

All my neighbours are a band D so I am unsure I would be able to make a claim? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

vivatifosi

Hi blossom,

That does sound too low for a band D. Just to check, is yours an ex-local authority property that the previous owners received a discount for? Is it shared ownership? Could it be a part exchange or a house that was bought from a relative? If so the valuation would be taken on the full market value and may not reflect the price in the deeds. Also are you in England? If you are in England and the house was bought on the open market at full value you should have a good case as your house value at the time would have would indicate that you should most likely fit in Band B.

Once you've established the above, I'd write to the VOA with a copy of your evidence and explain why you think your house should be rebanded. You don't have a right to an appeal if your valuation isn't amended, but if you answer the above questions in the way that I've indicated you may well have a good case.

blossom111_2

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes it was a local authority property when it was brought, they paid £35700 for it which was discounted but the full rate was £49300. Would this be a huge difference do you think to the private market price? Yes we are England in the South East. Is there anyway of finding out roughly what the houses would have been worth on the private market?

Many thanks

lincroft1710

Local Authority houses which were subject to Right to Buy had to be valued for sale at full open market value, but ignoring any tenant's improvements. The discount was then subtracted from this value giving price to be paid by tenant.

I presume the deeds must have all details of first sale including both omv price and discounted price.

blossom111_2

Dear Lincroft

Thanks very much for the reply.

I presume that the first price is the discounted price and the second the full price, from what i can make out on the deeds. Its all quite confusing but i'm pretty sure thats what it is.

Is it written anywhere officially about right to buy houses being valued on the open market? This would obviously help my case if i pursue it.

Thanks again

Michelle