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

Smartdriver

I thought "what the hell?" and filled in the online form with as little information as necessary and was forwarded to a page that had FAQ's on.

This was one of them :

"Q: How much will it cost to use an agency?
We charge a processing fee of £145, this is fully refundable in the event that we are unsuccessful at re-banding your council tax band. Upon successful re-banding CTR charge a commission fee of 15% of any amount refunded."


I may now print my own leaflet drop for my neighbours pointing out that using this Company is not necessary - all they have to do is come to my house (if they don't have a computer/internet access) and show them Martin's Money saving article about this subject.

These companies really make me cross !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

lincroft1710

KeithDorset wrote: »

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

An actual 1991 sale of a flat of same type as yours in same block is the best evidence other than the 1991 sale of the subject property. Unless there have been recent physical changes in the locality which would have devalued your flat, then what has happened to prices and relativities in the past 19 years is irrelevant, in 1991 your flat was worth more than £68K.

As the block was built around 1985/6, by 1991 any newbuild premium would have disappeared so you can't suggest that was a reason for the apparently high price.

lincroft1710

Smartdriver wrote: »

in many cases up to £2465 plus interest has been refunded

That in itself is slightly unbelievable as councils won't pay interest on CT refunds since there is no legal requirement for them to do so.

User_name_6

hi,

just looking for a bit of other opinions, as im not sure whether or not to go with trying to get my banding reviewed (lowered)

the reason im unsure is my property was only built in ~2006-7, and all the properties in the same development are the same band as me (B) I think. however going off the price guide back to 1991 thing im distinctly within band A.
going with the steps in the guide...

I am band B...
checking the bands on this road, there is 1 band D, 4 band C's (these are all at the far end of the road)
17 band Bs
21 band A's
(although some numbers appear in both A and B - im guessing prior to the rebuild they were A - whether this is a good argument that they still should be A I don't know)

I checked on the website for neighbouring properties' sale prices and the only one in my exact postcode is my neighbour (at 115k less than a year ago)

I purchased my prop at £92k about a year and a half ago.

so I put these into the thing to give you a 1991 value, and for my prop it gives £34k, and my neighbours (which is largely similar but has a front door which mine doesnt) £40k.

im unsure because, to me.. the valuation thing seems to say im not in danger of going up a band, (as the next band up is 52k+) however the properties similar to mine are band B (but all these only from as i say 2006-7)... but again they were as far as I can tell band A before that.. and I think they are smaller now than they were as there's more properties in the same part of the road.

should I try it? and im not sure what approach to take as all the "specific reasons" on the official list of reasons to challenge don't seem to me to apply.

any comments appreciated!

Horlock

Just trying to work out whether to challenge or not.

Basically all the houses identical to mine are the same band (E), however, others are lower band (D). So you think don't be silly except that one of the lower band houses sold 2 days apart from mine for £19000 more than we bought ours for (could it be we just got an absolute bargain)? Added to that using the calculation from Nationwide suggests that our house was right on the borderline - but not on the borderline of the band it is in on the borderline of C and D.

Any opinions?

After a bit more research in 1993 the property sold for £85000 which would have been in band D - however Nationwide is seems to be implying that a house worth £85000 in 1993 was worth £95000 in 1991 which would put it into the band E category.

lincroft1710

User_name wrote: »

hi,

just looking for a bit of other opinions, as im not sure whether or not to go with trying to get my banding reviewed (lowered)

the reason im unsure is my property was only built in ~2006-7, and all the properties in the same development are the same band as me (B) I think. however going off the price guide back to 1991 thing im distinctly within band A.
going with the steps in the guide...

I am band B...
checking the bands on this road, there is 1 band D, 4 band C's (these are all at the far end of the road)
17 band Bs
21 band A's
(although some numbers appear in both A and B - im guessing prior to the rebuild they were A - whether this is a good argument that they still should be A I don't know)

This doesn't make sense, a dwelling can only be in 1 band

I checked on the website for neighbouring properties' sale prices and the only one in my exact postcode is my neighbour (at 115k less than a year ago)

I purchased my prop at £92k about a year and a half ago.

so I put these into the thing to give you a 1991 value, and for my prop it gives £34k, and my neighbours (which is largely similar but has a front door which mine doesnt) £40k.

So how do you access your property

im unsure because, to me.. the valuation thing seems to say im not in danger of going up a band, (as the next band up is 52k+) however the properties similar to mine are band B (but all these only from as i say 2006-7)... but again they were as far as I can tell band A before that.. and I think they are smaller now than they were as there's more properties in the same part of the road.

This is confusing! What has actually happened to these properties?

should I try it? and im not sure what approach to take as all the "specific reasons" on the official list of reasons to challenge don't seem to me to apply.

any comments appreciated!

What sort of property do you have, flat or house?

lincroft1710

Horlock wrote: »

Just trying to work out whether to challenge or not.

Basically all the houses identical to mine are the same band (E), however, others are lower band (D). So you think don't be silly except that one of the lower band houses sold 2 days apart from mine for £19000 more than we bought ours for (could it be we just got an absolute bargain)? Added to that using the calculation from Nationwide suggests that our house was right on the borderline - but not on the borderline of the band it is in on the borderline of C and D.

Any opinions?

After a bit more research in 1993 the property sold for £85000 which would have been in band D - however Nationwide is seems to be implying that a house worth £85000 in 1993 was worth £95000 in 1991 which would put it into the band E category.

In my area property prices fell by about 20% between 1991 and 1993 so Band E doesn't seem incorrect.

User_name_6

lincroft1710 wrote: »

What sort of property do you have, flat or house?

dwellings can only be in 1 band yes... it confused me too...
but on there I put in to show me all band A properties and it had eg. no. 31 on my road show up here as band A.

then I had it show band B properties and it showed no. 31 as band B.


my property has no door on the road, we have shared private parking behind the houses, and I only have a door from here (basically my back door is my front door) - im sure this would have some reflection in property value.

in terms of what happened with the properties with mine..

there used to be I believe 3 or 4 bigger properties here, were torn down a few years back and more properties built in their place (like 5-7) therefore the properties now must be smaller than the prior properties which took up the same part of the road (and thus I assume previously held the same house numbers).

my property is a house.. it does have a letter in the house number though so lots of places think its a flat.


sorry if im still not very clear!

lincroft1710

User_name wrote: »

my property has no door on the road, we have shared private parking behind the houses, and I only have a door from here (basically my back door is my front door) - im sure this would have some reflection in property value.

Position of door will have little if any effect on value.

With regard to the duplication of numbers, the current house/band will be the one with later effective date.

It may be worth a try, the difference between your purchase price and that of your neighbour suggests that they may be very different or you got the bargain of a lifetime. As you're outside the 6 months time limit you're probably going to get a polite brush off unless you can find other similar houses in the area at Band A.

stannardh

OK, new to this website but I have a question. I am in council band D, we bought out flat for £178,000 in 2006 and according to the valuation calculator it was roughly worth £51,000 in 1991 so that should put us in band B. I just checked and our neighbours are also in band D or in E. Are we any good for an appeal or not given that our neighbours are in the same band?