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

feez

Hi , sorry to butt in
Can anyone please please help!!- after two Years from contacting the Scottish Ascessor Site
Been told by my local valuation board (West of scotland) that I should be re-banded from B to A. Been in my flat for 10 Years and overpaid my local council tax well over £1000 !!!!!. Will they pay this all back to me, as Ive heard they only pay back three months.??? Dont think this fair, and where do I stand legally, after all its a BIG ERROR on their part. and where has my hard earned cash went :mad: Any information would be sincerely appreciated
thankyou f

saintdave

Hi all just a quick question, i have been in my house since 1995 payed 52000 band b, in 2005 i had an extention built cost 25000 extra bedroom, 6 month later the council put me on to band c and back dated it to 12/1/2004 from some loop hole in the law, they said they could re value house and make me pay from 2004 is this right....i heard martin on monday saying they can only do this if you sell the house!!!
thanks Dave.

lincroft1710

saintdave - firstly, if you live in England or Wales, it is not the council who deal with banding but the Valuation Office Agency.

From VOA website:

When a property is improved (e.g. an extension is built), legislation prevents the VOA from increasing the existing band of that property until there is a “relevant transaction”.

The term "relevant transaction" simply means that the property has been sold as a freehold, or a lease for a period of seven years or more has been granted or transferred (i.e. sold to another party). A freehold sale also covers the situation where a leasehold owner/occupier pays a ground rent to a landlord who owns the freehold of the property, and the freehold only is subsequently sold on or bought by the leasehold owner/occupier. A 'right to buy' purchase is also a "relevant transaction" which could lead to a band increase.

The effective date for the band increase would have been the date of the relevant transaction (the law was recently changed so increase is not backdated), so I am unsure why the effective date was 12 Jan 2004.

Your band can be increased at any time if VOA believe it was incorrect as at 1 Apr 1993 or date it was first assessed whichever is the later date. But the increase cannot be backdated. As you paid £52K for your home in 1995, when prices were lower than 1991 (date of valuation for CT purposes), it may well have been worth several thousands more had it been for sale in 1991 and should have been a Band C.

nuttytart_2

We put in a claim in March 2008 and we are STILL waiting for a decision!! We are in band E, there are 5 other properties the same as ours in 2 streets, and all but 2 are in band D which is our argument. We are in the Huntingdonshire District Council area and the claim is being dealt with by Cambridge VOA.
Anyone else had their claim take this long? Every time I speak to the VOA I am told it is a difficult case and they have been promising us a letter since Feb this year.

theloft

I have to confess that I have not searched through 177 pages to see if this has been discussed before, but can anyone tell me if you get success with re-banding, can you also claim on your Water Comapany for a refund ?

lincroft1710

Water rates are not based on Council Tax but on the old domestic rating system which ceased in 1990.

leitmotif

Hi there,

I am querying the council tax banding of my brother's house on his behalf. We collected data on actual house price sales in his street and related these to the price of his house. We also used the Nationwide House Price graph to show how this would place his house firmly in Band B rather than Band C. Their response was to send someone out with a measuring tape and we today received a reply from the VOA that said they would not change the banding.

For the most part the letter is a standard template. However, the main gist of their argument is that his house is similar in size to the others in our street. In fact, it isn't - it's much smaller. Besides this, they argue that they checked 1991 sales figures for houses in his area and these support a Band C listing. There were no house sales in his small street around that time, so the VOA has presumably checked neighbouring streets, all of which have much bigger, better houses. In other words, their 'comparison' approach amounts to nothing better than the fly-by-night second-gear valuations performed in the early 90s and they haven't actually produced any data that refutes our data and calculations - they're just sweeping over it all with "sorry, we checked, and you're wrong".

Most disturbing, however, and the reason I am posting here for advice is that they say the following:

"I regret that there is no right of appeal against the outcome of my review. You can only appeal to the independent Valuation Tribunal if a valid “proposal to alter the valuation list” has been made to me as Listing Officer. The circumstances in which a proposal can be accepted as ‘valid’ are limited. From the information I have I do not believe you are in a position to make a proposal that I will accept as having been validly made."

I have the following questions, which I'm hoping anyone that has gotten through this stage may be able to answer:

1) Why is there no right of appeal? The VOA have provided an inadequate response insofar as they have not addressed and refuted our specific evidence. Surely until they do so our argument is solid and theirs is a fob-off.

2) If we can only appeal to the Tribunal where we have a 'valid' proposal to alter the listing, and if the only people to decide whether it is a valid proposal are the VOA, then how does a proposal ever get to the Tribunal if the VOA decide they're not going to address your evidence directly and they're just going to dig their heels in and say 'no' irrespective of what evidence you produce? In this regard, the use of the word 'I' in her final sentence above is telling.

Advice would be appreciated.

Benny130

I have just checked on the off chance I might be in the wrong band and low and behold i think I am!!

I live on a Plot ot 8 houses. 4 are 3 bedroom and 4 are 2 bedroom. I am the only one of the 2 bedrooms on a higher band. I made a call and they are looking into it but I am convinced I am right.

This will result in £16 per month less in council tax and a £450 refund. Happy Days :j

Doesnt take long to check so I you havent done so take 5 minutes and you might be pleasantly suprised :beer:

lincroft1710

leitmotif - Council Tax legislation lays down time limits for making an appeal, it must be made within 6 months of appellant becoming occupier. So if your brother has lived in his house longer than 6 months he has no right of appeal, the merits of the case do not enter into it. The VOA will know when he bought the house so can be fairly sure if he would be outside time limits.

As VOA have apparently checked the size of your brother's house then they will be able to compare it with sales of those of a similar size. House price indices are not accurate. Unless a valid appeal has been made the VOA are not allowed to disclose sales evidence.

The use of the word "I" has no undue significance, letters are written as if they have been written by the actual Listing Officer, but are in fact written by the caseworker.

The only thing I can suggest is that you look to see if there are any similar houses in the area in Band B and ask VOA to reconsider in light of this evidence.

leitmotif

lincroft1710 wrote: »

leitmotif - Council Tax legislation lays down time limits for making an appeal, it must be made within 6 months of appellant becoming occupier. So if your brother has lived in his house longer than 6 months he has no right of appeal, the merits of the case do not enter into it. The VOA will know when he bought the house so can be fairly sure if he would be outside time limits.

Thanks for reply lincroft. I don't suppose you know where it says this in legislation do you? I have looked and can't find it, and when I asked the head of the regional VOA office whether the six-month rule was based in legislation or was simply 'internal policy' she said it had no basis in legislation.

lincroft1710 wrote: »

As VOA have apparently checked the size of your brother's house then they will be able to compare it with sales of those of a similar size. House price indices are not accurate. Unless a valid appeal has been made the VOA are not allowed to disclose sales evidence.

The trouble is my brother's house is the only one in the area of its kind. His house is essentially an annex (a house has been split into two, with his house occupying maybe one third of the original building). In turn, his street is a 'cheap' cul de sac in an area where all the other streets contain much bigger and better houses. With that in mind, surely the only approach we (or presumably anyone) could take would be to compare sales prices of his place to sales prices of the other (bigger) houses, derive a relative percentage (e.g. his house is worth 75% of that one, 85% of that one, etc.) and then look at sales from around 1991?