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

lincroft1710

Basically just state in the letter what you have said in your post regarding the lower banded houses. You will have to give the exact addresses of these houses.

If your band is incorrect, as you've only been in your house 2 years, your refund will be in the hundreds.

alan0194

i moved into a council property in 1995, bought it in 2005, market value £40,000, moved out in 2008 and rented the property out. its been band B for as long as i lived there, but should have been band A. i have told the tenants that they should have a case to get it changed from B to A, but could i re-claim for the time that i was living there?

lincroft1710

If a CT band is reduced any previous occupier who should have paid on the lower band, but paid on the higher band is entitled to a refund of any overpayment of CT.

CarolynCh

I have just successfully got our CT band reduced from band F to band E - now waiting for a letter (and hopefully a cheque!) from the council before posting on the successes board.

Today I received a letter (addressed to our property only, not personally) from a company called Tax Band Review Ltd stating that they "have evidence of re-bands in your area" and offering to "fight" for a refund if the banding is incorrect. Looking at their website, it appears that they are charging an upfront fee of £135 and then a 25% commission of any refund. I am very concerned that some people might be conned into paying an upfront fee. The website is badly written and they are using an 0844 phone number so the whole thing looks simply like a money making scam.

Since the process is very easy anyway (following the MSE instructions), I wouldn't have thought that anyone would need a company to do it on their behalf. Should I bring this to the attention of the Valuation Office or the council?

lincroft1710

Neither the council nor the VOA will be that interested and the VOA has been aware of "cowboy" CT/NDR reduction firms for years. The VOA certainly has no powers to do anything about such firms and I doubt that any council has.

caramel_bunny

Hi,
I am in the process of buying a house at the moment, Band B, however, looking at DirectGov I see it has an improvement indicator alert next to it. Looking at the neighbouring properties on the Close, they vary from B to E! I know the property has been extended, as have a couple of the others.
Is there any way I can anticipate how much it will be when it is re-assessed? Do they re-assess once sold? The difference is a pretty major cost for us to consider! I was thinking of just trying to look at the houses visually to work out which look like they may have been extended and see if it tallies with the banding.
Thanks for any advice.

lincroft1710

House will be reassessed when sold. Be aware that if neighbouring properties haven't been sold since their extensions were done, then their bands won't have been reviewed.

gambledandlost

Hi folks, I got a letter today telling me that from 1991 my tax band should have been D (£1450), but I am actually living in E (£1773) and the change is effective from 1997. I have lived here for 7 years so was wondering if I can expect a cheque through the post. I get the single occupancy discount thingy so what I pay is less - would this discount be applied to the payment I recieve? I also know the person who owned my house before me, would they also get a cheque?
Thanks

haircutsallround

Hello all

First post, because I've been looking into re-banding and have a couple of questions (which hopefully someone can answer).

I've been up and down my street (a mix of 3 and 4 bedrooms; all houses built in 1999) and made a note of each house and compared to the banding registry. All houses are band D, except for three 4 beds that each have a double garage in a separate building (they are band E), and two 3 bedroom houses that are band C.

The only distinct difference between the two 3-beds in band C and the other three bed houses in the street is that both of these have in the past few years converted their garages into additional rooms.

In our case, we are in a non-converted 3-bed and according to the Nationwide calculator we should be in Band C as opposed to our present Band D (albeit within £2000 of the band ceiling).

So, my questions are:
1) has the garage conversions possibly made those houses worth less, thereby pushing them into band C? Or is it possible they both performed a council tax review at the same time as they had the conversion done?

2) our house remains almost standard - the only thing that could possibly add value to it is a garden office. Is it possible that the garden office will add enough value on the house to prevent it being re-banded?

Thanks in anticipation!

lincroft1710

gambledandlost wrote: »

Hi folks, I got a letter today telling me that from 1991 my tax band should have been D (£1450), but I am actually living in E (£1773) and the change is effective from 1997. I have lived here for 7 years so was wondering if I can expect a cheque through the post. I get the single occupancy discount thingy so what I pay is less - would this discount be applied to the payment I recieve? I also know the person who owned my house before me, would they also get a cheque?
Thanks

Basically you will receive a refund of all overpaid council tax, i.e. the difference between Band E and Band D amounts for each year you have paid CT. The refund will reflect the fact you are entitled to 25% discount. A cheque is the normal method of refund.

Tell you friend to contact the council and ask them to send him a cheque for his overpayment.