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

DebbieR

I applied to have my band decreased from E to D when I moved into my new-build house four years ago. My appeal was turned down as I was told that my house was the biggest style 4 bedroom house on the estate(I now know thats wrong, its one of the smallest). They also sent me "proof" that they were right in the form of a graph which showed that a house sold for the same price as mine in 1991 was still selling for the same price now and a list of houses on our estate which are in the same band as me - obviously as they were all done at the same time. Inspired by this site I'm now armed with a lot more information which puts my house easily into a band D. When I go on the VOA site and click appeal, however, all the houses on our estate have a pop up which states "Please note the band for this property has been changed by the listing officer. Unfortunately the time limit to appeal against that specific change has passed. You may of course appeal on other grounds" Does anyone know why this happens? Thanks in advance.

albany_2

Hi
I have been trying to work out if I could reband as I think I'm paying too much Council tax. However, looking at the valuation site today's valuation is F whereas I'm under D. I am a bit confused, is it based on D in 1991 as the value of my property in 1991 would fall in the C category based on what I bought it for (£60,000). Any help would be much appreciated.
Jay

T.J.

Greetings all (1st post!)

Many thanks to Martin and his team for an excellent resource here - the ethics and morality of this site are truly commendable.

Just received my inevitable “invalidity notice“, citing as usual the fact "we" had 6 months back in '93 to challenge the validity of our banding. I was too young to care back then, but it is worth pointing out that the VOA did not make other peoples banding public knowledge.

Having no idea what our house was worth my parents just accepted it. Now that the VOA have a website (as I understand it - created in 2005 *EDIT - link removed see below*) we can all see our neighbours banding. My reason for appeal is that the 10 identical houses next to mine are in band E, while we are in F. We have done nothing to this property in the last 30 years, so there are no other factors affecting it.

I will be writing to the listing officer of my local VOA giving my reasons for appeal (again), and my willingness to go to tribunal. Why is it that so many people seem to have found their local VOA just pay up, whereas some get refused? I think they are just going through the motions in the hope you will get bored as most seem to back down just prior to the tribunal.

If you are in the same boat as me, remind the VOA that they have a statutory duty to maintain an accurate list, a second gear drive-by 16 years ago is not enough. Of course they could raise the band of those other 10 houses - so in case you haven’t guessed - I will be keeping my mouth shut with the neighbours in the meantime!

Any feedback and advice before I draft my letter to the VOA much appreciated. Good luck guys and girls.

bye_bye_band_G

skcollobcat10 wrote:

Hello,

See post 667.

Does anybody have an idea whether I have enough evidence to support a reduction. The valuation assessor is visiting on Monday.

Many thanks

Actual sales evidence from 1991 is what the VOA looks for, so a sale of your exact property only 16 days before the valuations came in sounds the best possible evidence you could have.
(as long as it was a genuine full price sale with no reductions for council house sale, sale within the family etc).

T.J.

^^ I agree with bbbG (great name btw) - sale prices are excellent evidence unless the VOA can prove it sold for substantially under market value. Mortgage valuations of similar houses around a similar time and supporting documentation of sale prices in the area are all great but highly unlikely to be available 16 years later. Good luck though skcollobcat10 let us know how it goes

T.J.

Further to my original post in which I included a link, I have found a few interesting titbits. I decided to edit that link out of my post above as on its own is misleading, so am posting a more considered view here.

I have found great trouble in confirming a definite date that the current VOA website's lists of publicly accessible banding data went live. I am currently assuming it was around 2005 based on a few dozen references but please feel free to correct me when you find a definite statement to the contrary.

Since I have now had nothing better to do than read through some VOA internal publication, I thought I would share. Have a look at this list *here*. There's a few interesting quotes in a few of those documents. For example in *this* one they state under "6. Existing Dwellings" that "6.1 The existing set of Property Details must always be checked as part of CT maintenance and appeal work." I wonder if their obligation extends to realising that a run of 11 identical houses one is in a higher band than the rest, despite identical Property Details.

I did find *this* one amusing when they state "7. We know there are anomalies in the current lists - will we get it right next time? We accept that due to the speed at which the current lists were created in 1992/93 there are still some anomalies in bandings. The situation has been further affected by the fact that valuation significant alterations to properties are only reflected when a subsequent sale occurs."

Hmmm... the phrase no s*** Sherlock springs to mind

Finally here's an odd one. After the one above they state "8. What about rights of Appeal? In 1993 there was a period of eight months from 1 April within which any council tax payer could make an appeal if they considered their band to be incorrect. "

Ok, fine. So why are we all being told we only had 6 months to appeal. If they don't know the difference between 6 and 8 months it's no wonder they get confused between band F and band E :rolleyes:

T.J.

There are more documents *here*.

Just to add to the above found *this* link - gives a little more insight into the VOA.

Thought it worth a mention

T.J.

Ok ok I'll stop spamming this thread. Honest. Well starting after this post anyway

Just answered my own question:-

"Lists of all Council Tax bandings in England and Wales now live on the Internet"
Dated - 10 June 2002

Found it *here*

I really should start looking in the right places, eh

albany_2

Hi
Having looked into bandings further I realise I am under Band F and some of the houses in my street are Band E. I moved in in 1991 when it was E and as I live in Wales it was revalued in April 05 and went up to F which I would like to dispute. As I am new to this and don't know where to start I wonder if any advice or what evidence would I need would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, Jay

staro30

Hi,

I have followed the advice given on this site and submitted a proposal for rebranding based on the case that my house value was in a lower 1991 banding.

However, I received an invalidity notice and a letter stating that a review would take place. The reason for the invalidity was that I did not state when I became a taxpayer on the property. They also sent a form for me to complete asking for details such as have you got a conservatory/outbuildings.

I have emailed the relevant date and I am in two minds whether to complete the form as we have recently added a conservatory and shed.

Any advice on what I should do next?

Thanks
Staro