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

lincroft1710

the_chicken_lady wrote: »

Hi there,
we bought our tiny detached house in 1999 for 72k (it was actually valued at 69k but we paid the extra to get it as the market was going mad at the time) it's worth about 225k today and needs quite a lot of work still.
We are in band D, our immediate neighbours in the only other house are in C , their house is identical but has a large conservatory added and the original wash-house part which has been pulled down on ours.Whilst researching, I noticed they were re-banded to a C in 1993. It's a unadopted road, (which also makes us think we should pay less as we have to repair our own road!)The other 4 properties are bungalows, the highest being worth 325k, lowest about 220k, all are in band D.
Our house is tiny, a 5' x7' kitchen and 2 and a half bedrooms (we had to saw the bed down to get it in the 3rd room!)
Ive just phoned my local council and been fobbed off with 'house prices fell from 1991 to 1999 so you will probably go up a band' and telling me that is is very likely that my neighbours will go up and I will stay the same....talk about laying on the guilt!!!
luckily I had some good answers for all her silly comments like 'the nationwide website is incorrect, the house next door is smaller,(its bigger) if it had an extension we wouldn't know about it...(yes you would..you granted planning permission!!) and house prices fell in the 90s (I remember them rising rapidly..?? please let me know if I'm wrong)
A letter will be in the post from the valuation people, so I will wait with baited breath.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has encountered this and the outcome.
Please wish us luck..we missed out on 6 grands worth of bank charges, so I'm hoping to get more luck with this!!

Did you speak to the council or the Valuation Office Agency (part of HMRC) who actually deal with CT banding. VOA have nothing to do with planning so would not necessarily be aware of any extension.

The Nationwide house property price index is inaccurate, as I've compared their estimates with actual sale prices on many occasions (I'm ex VOA). House prices in my area fell from late 1989 right through until 1995, after which they started rising reaching 1991 levels in 1997/8.

The value of your house in 1999 was £72K as that is the price you paid for it. If the house is/was in need of repair then this cannot be reflected in CT band. Being on an unadopted road does not automatically mean the band will be lower, it will depend on what effect the road has on the price of the house.

Given the 1999 sale price of your home, it does suggest that it is a borderline case, so you may be in with a chance.

arroli

We are in process of buying a cottage in a very run down state and believe Banding in group C is very high
I am unable to check price as it was last bought in 1988 - pre 1991 list
However, 2 neighbours in street are currently undergoing checks into banding
My Q is, as cottage will be un occupied during restoration, is it better to apply now or wait until works are complete (as hopefully we wont have to pay CT for up to a year)

andymb

Im currently a band D, after checking iv found that most of my neighbours are a band C. iv done the 1991 house price estimator and it comes out at £51332 which would put it into a B.
My question is, should I challenge the banding as I have extended the property over the last 3 years to add a large kitchen and a 4th bedroom.
Is anyone in the same position?

highpriestess

Good morning

I wonder if any of you helpful people might be able to assist please? I’ve followed Martin’s steps, but am still unsure whether to proceed. If anyone with experience/knowledge could give me their opinion, I’d be really grateful. So here’s the info:

The property is a middle terrace and divided into two flats – mine and the one upstairs.
I was responsible for alerting the VOA that the property was two flats and did this when I moved in. Prior to our moving in, the place was a house.
I bought my 2 bed ground floor flat in Oct 2007 for £230,000
The flat upstairs is also a 2 bed flat and sold for £222,500 around the same time in Q3 2007.
My council tax band is C and the one upstairs is B.

The other terraces in the road are a mix of houses and flats. The flat conversions are all pretty similar in this area.
I’ve done the VOA search and see that the houses are all band C, bar one which is band D.
The terrace flats nearest me (next door, and next door but one) are in band B.
There are some flats at the end of the road that are band C.

I’ve calculated the 1991 price for my flat (£58,989) and upstairs (£57,065). This would make us both band C in 1991 even though they didn’t exist.
The flats nearby me which are band B, have 1991 prices of £51,008 and £49,110. Making them band B.
The flats at the end of the road which are band C, are £47,739 and £51,288. Making them band B, not C as they are currently.
The houses are around £75,928 and £97,835 (band D property). So correct as one is band C and the other is band D at the moment.

So, the question is – if the flats around are band B, and the houses are all C, should I also be in band B?
Or are they all paying too little and I’m on the right band? Or is upstairs and the flat next door paying too little?

What is also confusing me is the 1991 valuation issue. It seems to me that if you paid more for your property like we did (my flat and the ones at the end of the road which are also band C) at the height of the property boom in 2007, then the 1991 calculation is higher than flats that were bought a few years earlier and were cheaper, even though they are very similar in layout and size. The flats nearby me were bought around 2004 and were considerably cheaper at that time. Yet they are in band B as a result of the 1991 calculation.

Is this because the price we paid for our flat is comparable to what a 3 bed house in our street goes for these days, but the index calculation doesn’t take this into account? Hence the high 1991 price calculation?

Sorry this has been such a long post! I just want to explain all the background. Anyone think I should just keep schtum and mind my own business or is it worth querying why similar flats nearby me are all in Band B and whether we should also be band B?

Thanks so much in advance for any guidance!

HP :-)

lincroft1710

arroli wrote: »

We are in process of buying a cottage in a very run down state and believe Banding in group C is very high
I am unable to check price as it was last bought in 1988 - pre 1991 list
However, 2 neighbours in street are currently undergoing checks into banding
My Q is, as cottage will be un occupied during restoration, is it better to apply now or wait until works are complete (as hopefully we wont have to pay CT for up to a year)

If the cottage is in a poor state of repair this cannot be reflected in the CT band, but lack of modernisation can be reflected. You only have 6 months from the date you purchase the cottage in which you can appeal and have a right to a Tribunal Hearing if you cannot agree the band with VOA. After 6 months you can only ask VOA to investigate band and you have no right to a Tribunal Hearing. Even if you are not actually paying CT you are still classed as being the CT payer from the date you become entitled to occupy, or if earlier, the date you actually occupy.

If the property is unoccupied then it is exempt from CT payment for up to 6 months, but some or all of this exemption may have been used up by a previous owner. Only if the property is undergoing major works and is such uninhabitable does the up to 12 months exemption apply.

lincroft1710

andymb wrote: »

Im currently a band D, after checking iv found that most of my neighbours are a band C. iv done the 1991 house price estimator and it comes out at £51332 which would put it into a B.
My question is, should I challenge the banding as I have extended the property over the last 3 years to add a large kitchen and a 4th bedroom.
Is anyone in the same position?

The extensions cannot be reflected in the band until the house is sold or there is a national revaluation. Because house price estimators are inaccurate, Band C would seem to be a more appropriate band.

lincroft1710

high priestess - Bear in mind house price calculators are inaccurate. I presume you are in England so the house around £75K would be D, the one around £97K would be E. If the inaccuracy was 10% too high, this would still put you in Band C.

House price calculators are not usually used by the VOA in calculating CT bands as they have details of actual sale prices in 1991 (and all years after and many years previous.

If you did present your evidence to the VOA in support of a lower band there is a risk that any properties the VOA consider underbanded may be increased and your band would remain at C

esmy

general_langsdorf wrote: »

We moved to our current property in 2005, however we remain under the same local authority (Kirklees). Our rebanding was done automatically and we received a rebate and now pay less every month.
Does anybody know if we can claim back any council tax overpayments we may have made on the previous property?

We did this successfully last year, not far from you but not same local authority. An old neighbour told us that the whole terrace had been rebanded and all the current residents had received refunds on overpayments. We wrote to the LA to reclaim our overpayment between 1993 and 2000, and were paid with no fuss!

KeithDorset

Hi

I recently went throught the checks as listed in Martins article. The neighbours check I passed and the valuation check in '91 came out as 3k under working backwards.

I am in a 2 bed flat and other flats in my road, 3 beds marketing at £249k are in band C whereas I am valued at 190k - 210k (currently trying to sell). I also see bungalows at £260k in band C.

I rang the listings officer for Bournemouth and she is adamant that they have sales figures for my block for the year 1991 of above 68k thus putting it in band D. This may be true, (the blocks were then only 5 or 6 years old) but now, patently obviously my flat is no longer worth more than the "older" ones.
The officer was insistent that because they had the sales figures for 1991 putting it in Band D I basically now hadnt a leg to stand on.

So have I had it then? No chance of changing an obviously wrong band?

Thanks All

Smartdriver

I had a leaflet pushed through my letterbox today from a company named "Council Tax Review" of Thornhill Road, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. It proclaimed that my property "had been identified as possibly paying morecouncil tax than your neighbours, who live in the same style house as you. A number of properties in your area have had their council tax banding lowered, and they have received a refund of council tax monies paid, backdated to the date they move into the property, in many cases up to £2465 plus interest has been refunded"

The leaflet is printed with the company address (above), telephone number (0845 local rate),email address and web address.

I checked out the website and clicked on the "free evaluation" link which sent me to a page asking for personal details and contained a 'box' to enter ALL my previous addresses and Council Tax Bands.... ?

I'd like to know if this is yet another "compensation" company who rake off a tidy sum from any rebate received. I don't particularly want to phone them myself and wondered whether anyone else had ever heard of them ??

Some of my neighbours are frail and elderly and I'd hate them to be sucked into something like this when they can do this FREE with help from a friend.