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

lincroft1710

morley23 - your band is and always was correct, neighbour's band is now correct, so everything is as it should be. Law does not allow band increase to be backdated where increase is because of error in original band. There is nothing you can do, you've not overpaid so are not due any refund.

It's perhaps an opportune moment to say to those seeking band reduction where similar house has lower band, that it isn't always the higher band that's wrong.

lincroft1710

Deleted_User - find properties similar in size and type and as near as possible to yours and check their bands on VOA website.

sood10

if my property was only built in 2001, can i still claim for a re-banding if i am paying more council tax than my neighbours, despite the calculator dating back to 1991?

queeney_2

But if it wasn't built in 91?

sood10

it was built in 2001.

the property was bought for £103,000 in 2001, and is in tax band F. however, my neighbours are in tax band E. i used the calculator and it said that in 1991 the property would have been in tax band E, however, the property was only built in 2001...

does anyone think it will be possible for me to claim anything back?

bobbydrake50

lincroft1710 wrote: »

bobbydrake50 - After price falls of early 90s some areas and also some house types didn't reach 1991 levels of value until 1998. However there is no harm in trying.

Thanks for your help Lincroft - I will give it a try as one of my neighbours is on a lower band and 2 others are pending. We also live a few doors away from a club and just feet away from the M62 so there is always plenty of noise which does affect the property prices.

campari

lincroft1710 wrote: »

campari - for CT purposes houses have to be valued as if they are in good repair even if they aren't. Living accom in pubs and other commercial property are valued on different basis to stand alone housing, so you can't compare.

You have very few options, you could write to VOA customer service manager and say you do not think you've been treated fairly, or even write to your MP, neither way will guarantee a reduction however.

BTW things that have happened in past and have been sorted out can't be taken into account for CT purposes.

Hi - thanks for responding. Ive been looking at the regs regarding diclosure of neighbour disputes on selling ones house - and a case where a lady was fined £30,000 for failing to disclose a disturbing neighbour thus it was deemed that an average property might lose value to this amount or individually calculated to suit each case, so it may be that at this time I will recoup the losses if not via council tax I can and will sue the brewery concerned! lol

lincroft1710

sood10 - I presume you're in Scotland. You can ask assessor to review band, but if he says band OK , there's not much you can do as you are out of time to make formal appeal if you've lived there since 2001.

House price indices are not very accurate so it is not certain your band is wrong. From posts and PMs from Scottish CT payers it seems assessors take a hard line so you need to make a strong case for band reduction.

doug63

I've just looked at the Nationwide House Price calculator and found it unreliable. for example my neighbour's identical house was sold in 2001 for 170,000 and again in 2005 for 215,000. The calculator however claimed it should have been valued at 289.590 then. A whopping difference. Working out its value from this for 1991 showed it to be 100,000 so taking it into Band E. Calculating my own home which I bought in 2002 for 155,000 back to 1991 showed it to be worth 81,000 so correctly it's Band D. I don't want my neighbour going through this or the council and saying we should be Band E now. Thanks Martin!

deedops

Are you able to reclaim even if you have now moved house? Our previous house we were band C but I have just calculated it as band B. We were there for almost 5 years!