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

Red_dog_Sam

Definitely no reduction for teachers.

Even as a student teacher - if you were in a household with 2 other people over 18 who were in work, there would be no discount on the bill.

barlov

Thank you to both, lincroft1710 and Red_Dog_Sam, for your advice regarding council tax for Teachers, and the lack of any reductions (unfortunately!).

AliO2012

I have lived in my flat for 14 years and only came across this part of your website recently so I decided to contact my local office to ask about a rebanding on my property. Using the valuation calculator on the site, I had discovered that my property would have been squarely in the middle of band B in 1991, but unfortunately, as my flat is ex-coucil I have no sale price comparisson as most of my neighbours are either still council tenants or purchased direct from the council at a reduced rate. There was one 2-bed property that I could find a sale price for on the estate and using this in the valuation tool on this site, this would have been valued at around the middle of band C in 1991

My flat is in a block of 6 over 3 floors, in an estate of about 15 blocks. All the ground floor properties are 1-bed, whilst all the 1st and 2nd floor flats are 2-bed but all of the properties are banded as C. From the front of the block, all of the flats look the same, it is only once you are inside that you can see the difference, so I assume that they were valued in a "drive-by" fashion.

The valuation office have come back to me and said that they are not prepared to alter the banding as there is no evidence of sales of similar properties to compare to and they have also said that I have no grounds to appeal this decision. Can anyone tell me - is there anything else that I can do about this?

lincroft1710

AliO2012 wrote: »

The valuation office have come back to me and said that they are not prepared to alter the banding as there is no evidence of sales of similar properties to compare to and they have also said that I have no grounds to appeal this decision. Can anyone tell me - is there anything else that I can do about this?

For a 2 bed council flat, Band C seems high, so I presume you live in a good area. Suggest you try to find archived 1991 newspaper property ads for 1 bed flats nearby and see what asking prices were.

The VOA would have had details of the flats from their pre CT records, so would have known that it was a 1 bed.

Charlie_Fodder

Hi all,
approximately 6 months ago, my girlfriend and myself bought our first house together, it is a 2 bedroom end terrace with a detached garage and a half decent sized back garden (hardly extensive, but larger that most of the other in the estate).

As it stands currently we are in Band B, however looking on the relevant websites most (but not all) of our neighbours are in Band A, including the houses in the middle of the terrace, it would seem that the houses on the ends are in the same band as us, including our immediate neighbour whose garage adjoins ours between our 4 block terrace and hers.

All of the houses have an almost identical footprint and internal layout, so is just being on the end of the terrace with a slightly larger garden enough to bump us up into the next Band?

I have done the 1991 price comparison using the amount we paid, and this would indicate that we should comfortably fit into Band A.

Any insight into this would be appreciated, as although the amount saved will not be dramatic, the difference will work out to about £175 per year...... and we certainly dont want to annoy the neighbours by increasing theirs.

many thanks

-john

heather8

I have read and re-read Martin's article, but a lot of it doesn't apply, so I don't know where to start to find the 1991 valuation.

My house is on it's own, it's in it's own grounds and away from the main road. No it's not a mansion.

There are no other houses therefore to compare.

It was bought in 1997 for 143,000 and is in Yorkshire. Now when I go on the Nationwide website, it gives the correct banding, however, Yorkshire is a very big area and my house is in one of the poorer areas.

How can I find a more accurate 1991 value?

lincroft1710

heather8 wrote: »

It was bought in 1997 for 143,000 and is in Yorkshire. Now when I go on the Nationwide website, it gives the correct banding,

What band is the house?

lincroft1710

Charlie_Fodder wrote: »

All of the houses have an almost identical footprint and internal layout, so is just being on the end of the terrace with a slightly larger garden enough to bump us up into the next Band?

Yes, and as you also have a garage as well. I presume the Band A houses don't have a garage or have their garage in a block away from the house.

What part of Cambs are you in?

Charlie_Fodder

All of the Band A houses have garages, but yes they are in a block at the back of the gardens, but the other end of our terrace also has a garage in this block and they are also Band B too....
Can having to walk a maximum of 5 meters from your back gate actually make this difference?
We are in Chatteris, a small town in Fenland

lincroft1710

Charlie_Fodder wrote: »

Can having to walk a maximum of 5 meters from your back gate actually make this difference?
We are in Chatteris, a small town in Fenland

If a garage does not adjoin the garden or the actual house then it cannot be reflected in the CT band. In any case if the 1991 value of a terrace was £39K, an end terrace could easily be worth £41K.

Knew March and Whittlesey much better than Chatteris, but Band B for 2 bed ET with garage doesn't seem excessive. Best thing to do is to look around the town and see if there are other estates with similar houses and what their bands are.