martin's council tax banding advice

tigs1999

what a nightmare. i've just ended up emailing my council and our local paper as i'm so livid that houses which are worth more than ours do not seem to have been rebanded since 1993 and that presumably a lot of our council tax payers are paying extra to make up for the folk who are paying less because of this. i very much doubt that given house price rises anyone is going to successfully appeal against their tax band. however if everyone appeals to their council to reband ALL the houses in their area their revenue will increase enormously and perhaps overall council tax will come down!

whambamboo

tigs1999 wrote:

what a nightmare. i've just ended up emailing my council and our local paper as i'm so livid that houses which are worth more than ours do not seem to have been rebanded since 1993 and that presumably a lot of our council tax payers are paying extra to make up for the folk who are paying less because of this. i very much doubt that given house price rises anyone is going to successfully appeal against their tax band. however if everyone appeals to their council to reband ALL the houses in their area their revenue will increase enormously and perhaps overall council tax will come down!

the council tax is based on 1991 valuations.... So it's not surprising they haven't been revalued since 1993.

Doozergirl

"The council tax band of a property is not related to its current market value. This is because, by law, council tax valuations are based on the price a property would have fetched if it had been sold on 1 April 1991."

from: http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/cti_home.htm

So, nothing to do with current house prices, regardless of what some brainless council employees will you have you think. If your banding is too high then appeal. It sure won't be the person that answers the phone that deals with it. lol.

tamste

Thats OK, but I appealed on my banding in 1994 and the appeal was rejected, however I have just noticed that 2 properties in my street (one is only 2 doors away) are banded lower than the rest. These two properties are identical to the others, so I can't see why there is a difference. The property we bought in 1994 had not been previously sold as it was owned from new (1936) by the same family. It also needed extensive work including heating to get it habitable.

Hpw do I go about appealing now as they have already decided in 1994??

A_Nice_Englishman

http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/can_i_appeal.htm

Doozergirl

Martin’s Article on how to appeal:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1160141972,18232

The discussion thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=3124057#post3124057

The old discussion thread which has the original advice and lots of anecdotes:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=82562

matphil

Doozergirl wrote:

"The council tax band of a property is not related to its current market value. This is because, by law, council tax valuations are based on the price a property would have fetched if it had been sold on 1 April 1991."

from: http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/cti_home.htm

So, nothing to do with current house prices, regardless of what some brainless council employees will you have you think. If your banding is too high then appeal. It sure won't be the person that answers the phone that deals with it. lol.

About 2 months ago every house in my street received a letter telling us that a 'council representative' would be visiting our street to reasess our council tax band. It said that you did not need to be in but it would be helpful if you could answer some questions.
The outcome was that the houses concerned are now worth more so our council tax band was changed to a higher one, effective from the date of the letter.
Other streets in the area have not had this happen to them so far it has just been this one street.

Doozergirl

I didn't make that up, it's from the official site! If it were the case that they were rebanding acording to HPI then there wouldn't be council tax bands available for many houses!

I know you can be rebanded once you buy a property if the previous owners had made changes to it.

CharleneUK

Hmm.. I just checked out my neighbours. We are in a block of 6, and we're all on band B, apart from one, who is on band C. Have no idea why.

I pay around £103 per month council tax.

matphil

Doozergirl wrote:

I didn't make that up, it's from the official site! If it were the case that they were rebanding acording to HPI then there wouldn't be council tax bands available for many houses!

I know you can be rebanded once you buy a property if the previous owners had made changes to it.

I wasn't suggesting that you had made it up I was just letting you know what had happened to me recently.
I haven't recently purchased the property either I have lived her for 20 years.