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

book_lover

Can I just ask again - who can I PM or email about the differences between band values in England and Scotland? If that information had been in the article I could have saved a lot of time.

thanks

Maisie

tallpaul wrote:

DOH!

I have just moved out of my house of 6 years and Im sure I was paying a higher band, if only I had seen this thread a couple of months ago, the potential rebate I would have had from there would have at least paid towards my move.

Oh well, my new house is a band D but most of my street are band c. Ive sent off my claim, crossing my fingers.

I don't know how it will work but if you paid too much council tax previously apply for a rebate on your previous house also.

Nothing to lose.

Maisie OP

40079

The article setting out the 3 steps has an omission which could cause some problems.

in step 3 when working out the 1991 value there needs to be a 5th bullet point added to ensure that people change the area from just "UK" to the actual region they live in eg "West Midlands".

I know its fairly obvious but the first time round I was just following Martin's instructions and failed to check the Nationwide site properly.

In my case just using "UK" showed that I was in the correct banding but using the correct area suggests I should keep shtoom because I should be 1 band HIGHER.

Others may be caught out and think they should be in a lower band when in fact they will be in a higher band if they challenge the valuation.

Alimc_2

Looks like loads are on the VOA website. Haven't been able to use it all day !

MSE_Martin

[quote}Can I just ask again - who can I PM or email about the differences between band values in England and Scotland? If that information had been in the article I could have saved a lot of time.[/quote]

We did this about 2 o'clock today after requests - its in there now - sorry for the omission earlier

MSE_Martin

Someone earlier asked an interesting question about 'who pays' I'm going to add the answer in the article as I think it's a useful note, this is what will be added.

Payouts don't mean everyone else in the area will pay more

According to Tony Travers, local government specialist from the London School of Economics, the obligation is on central government to make up the cost of substantial rebanding. The exact relationship is complex, but it does mean the cost is spread. Rather bizarrely some individual councils may actually gain from this, as there are bigger subsidies if more people are in lower bands. Yet let's put it in perspective, the whole point of this is to get your money back for council tax you've been overpaying for years.

amazonvader

Am I right in thinking this is only possible for people who have bought their homes, rather than those in rented accommodation?

vikki_slade

since seeing the article on AOL for the council tax savings i have been trying to follow the three steps...guess what the government's Valuation Office website is "not found" even when you do a google search....smells fishy to me, suddenly you cant access this "so called public" information!!!

HugoSP

MSE_Martin wrote:

Someone earlier asked an interesting question about 'who pays' I'm going to add the answer in the article as I think it's a useful note, this is what will be added.

Payouts don't mean everyone else in the area will pay more

According to Tony Travers, local government specialist from the London School of Economics, the obligation is on central government to make up the cost of substantial rebanding. The exact relationship is complex, but it does mean the cost is spread. Rather bizarrely some individual councils may actually gain from this, as there are bigger subsidies if more people are in lower bands. Yet let's put it in perspective, the whole point of this is to get your money back for council tax you've been overpaying for years.

Thanks Martin, my wife and I both thought of this very issue when we watched your interview this morning on the BBC News. You gave a great interview BTW

Would just like to mention my own experience when I was living in Leicester. My house, a Mid terrace property was in Band B when my neigbours were all in Band A. I challenged it within the first 6 months of the charge coming out and a surveyor from Leicester City Council came to survey the house.

I was told that their valuation formula used area (within Leicester), and floor area. We both measured the house and he then calculated the floor area, which was slightly less than their 2nd gear estimate. In addition our demolition of an outbuilding was taken into account.

Whilst he was there he used the formula to calculate my banding and assured me that my house was in the correct band. However my neighbour, who had just had a bathroom extension was possibly looking at going up to band B - and the only reason he found out about it was because I had used his property as a case for my appeal - oops!

He also told me of a case where a band B property appealed, only to be put up to band C.

grandadbaza

madshopper wrote:

Paul you can go to https://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/ where you can input your figs and it will tell you the estimated value in 1991. We did a successful appeal using this as supporting info and archive info from the local property pages in April 1991

Hi I went to the nationwide site and put in what I paid for my house in 1996 and the figure it gave me for 1991 was 2k higher than 1996 price! have I done something wrong?

Baza