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

lincroft1710

deedops - no. Contact current occupier and ask them to seek rebanding. If they are successful you can ask council for refund of any overpayment. However as you will have seen from the post previous to yours, house price indices are inaccurate, so the band may not be wrong.

deedops

Thanks for that. I think I will try and contact the current owners, you never know!

da_guru

Hello all,

Firstly let me thank anyone that can advise in advance

I live in Scotland and have lived in my property since Oct 2007, the banding on the house is a band E. I was late on the uptake regarding appealing and started the ball rolling when I realised I could do so a year later.

The process to appeal your banding in Scotland is to fill out an online appeal form, which I did and my case was handed to the Ayrshire Valuation Joint Board and was with them for some time. With our appeal we submitted rock solid proof that my house, which was build in 1995 was sold for 53K, so should be in the D banding not E.

We have just received our letter from the assessor informing us that he is unable to accept my proposal as valid because it was not made within the period laid down by statute mentioning The Council Tax (Alterations of List and Appeals) (Scotland) Regulations 1993

The letter goes on to say, notwithstanding the above, I have checked the existing banding and am satisfied that the correct Council Tax Band has been placed on the property!

How on earth can he come to that conclusion when faced with proof of the property valuation (as sold in 1995)??

We have checked our neighbours bandings and our banding is consistant with theirs...we suspect the whole street has been banded wrong so could open a can of worms for the council.

So, can some kind person with an undestanding of this type of situation give us advise on what do do next?

The letter mentions an appeals process, however the appeal is only allowed regarding the validity of the proposal.

To be honest, Im not bothered about the whole backdating payments...I just want to pay what the house should be banded on.

Thank you for any advise...I apologise for a long winded post.

Thanks you.

lincroft1710

da guru - Council Tax bands are based on 1991 values not 1995. In most of England 95 prices were lower than 91 by as much as 25/30%, don't know if same applied in Scotland.

There is not a lot you can do. Your proposal is clearly invalid as it was made outside the 6 month time limit allowed for appeals. If you are unhappy with the way assessor has dealt with your request you could write to your MSP, but it will not guarantee a band reduction.

da_guru

didnt know that regarding the prices being 25-30% higher in 91 than 95. I would assume that would have been the case up here in Scotland also, and if so would snooker me.

I take it there is absolutely no way round the whole 6 month window?

lincroft1710

da guru - 6 month rule is absolute, it is laid down in Council Tax law. Pre email even if an appeal had been sent by post within 6 months time limit and was lost in post and never delivered, if a subsequent appeal was made outside 6 months time limit, it would still be invalid

DougS_2

Despite following the system, taking loads of photos of comparable houses, collating all the data and feeling an even greater sense of injustice, we were refused a lower banding (we did find that the house next door was also grossly overbanded but we don't know if they complained)

We were also refused any right of appeal so we are now stuck with a D banding when loads of comparable houses are C.

It's NOT guaranteed so don't assume it is (oh and it's a bit annoying that the other thread only reports successes which adds to the impression that everyone wins)

da_guru

ah yep...I did read thru the other thread with all the success stories, just goes to show how many houses out there are banded wrong.

lincroft1710

Doug S - apart from photos, exactly what other evidence did you submit?

pipadeepip

Hi, I'm new to this not even sure I'm writing in the right place. I have looked through the site for the information I need but it is eluding me. I live in Wales bought the house in 1988 it was banded as e in 1991 but changed to d in 2004. Do we have a case for a refund when we were paying at the higher rate until the band was lowered? I would appreciate any advice available.
Many thanks