Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

lincroft1710

April - if you are in arrears with CT payments then the council are correct in their action. You are only due a refund of any overpayment, so your CT account is credited with sufficient money to bring it up to date and any money above this amount is refunded to you. Some councils are not so generous and prefer bailiffs to repayment plans.

As the arrears have been paid off and you now have enough money to pay the CT for the rest of the year then the repayment plan is likely to be cancelled.

Husna

Local Borough Council: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Council Tax Band Before: B
Council Tax Band After: A
Amount refunded: £200+

Plus, I don't need to pay any council tax until April next year!!

The whole process was very smooth. I just called them and told them my neighbour was in band A and I was in band B. And within 6 weeks they changed my band, and refunded me. Great!! Thanks Martin. X

Space_Monkey

I followed the procedure as I was sure the flat I was renting should be band D rather than E. After a long wait and a few phonecalls, I recieved this half-hearted letter about how it probably should be E and that's the end of it. I did further investigation and am addamant it should be band D and a similar property next door was in band D as well as a number of other flats in my street. shortly after I put in my claim, the website linked from here showing the band for each property, suddenly showed all the flats in my street as deleted, and it remains so today, which I find puzzling. I complained to the local councillor that a proper valuation should be carried out, and recieved a favourable response, but this was in August. I have now moved out, but would still like the matter resolved as I paid council tax there for 5 years.

Can anyone advise what to do.

lincroft1710

I recieved this half-hearted letter about how it probably should be E and that's the end of it.

Therefore the matter has been resolved as far as VOA (E & W) or Assessor (Scot) are concerned. If the band for the flat has been deleted then there is a further problem as the band no longer exists so cannot be reduced.

Unless the flats have been demolished, reconstituted into different units or have had their addresses changed I cannot see why the bands would have been deleted. In any case you should have received notification of why the deletion happened.

I would usually advise that a taxpayer ask the new occupier to appeal, but he can only appeal against a current band (if there is one) and thus if he was successful any backdating will be for a very short period of time to the date the current band came into force.

I don't know about Scot, but certainly in E & W councillors have no say in CT banding matters. They can only ask VOA to look at a band and can't do anything if VOA says it is correct.

raphanius

Local Borough Council: Chesterfield, Derbyshire
Council Tax Band Before: B
Council Tax Band After: A
Amount refunded: TBA
Annual saving going forward: TBA

a huge thanks to martin lewis and everyone on this thread.

i have just received a letter from the valualation office confirming my council tax band has been lowered from band B to band A :T

we have been in this house since council tax was introduced

i have to wait two weeks now for the council to send us a new bill

don't know yet whats happening with back payment...what happens next?

i reckon they owe us a substantial amount of cash

lincroft1710

The Council will contact you regarding the refund and will adjust your payments for remainder of CT year.

greatneb

Southwark Council
Current band E
Targetting band C/D

Hi

I am going to tribunal tomorrow to appeal my current banding. I am in band E but all the other flats in my square are in band C or D. This includes the four identical flats in my buildings being in band C.

I have presented the VOA a letter which they wrote to my residents association in 1995 confirming that my flat should be in Band C.

The line of the VOA is that the 1995 letter was wrong and invalid and that every other flat in the square is in the wrong band. They have cited sales evidence (which is hard to argue with) which would imply all the flats should be in at least band E. The evidence is from 1990-1993 so it is hard to dispute.

Has anyone come accross this approach from the VOA before? Any advice on how to counter it?

I plan to point out that the other flats in my building and square in band C/D. That the sale records for the flats he sites are not directly comparable since some have gardens and more significantly there are very few freehold/leasehold properties in my local area so they are in artificially high demand.

Any ideas?
Thanks
Ben

atsirkrob

Local Borough Council: Mole Valley, Surrey
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: nil
Annual saving going forward: nil

Mole Valley declined to make a change despite the fact that we fulfilled both Martin's stated criteria - ie the neighbour's check and the valuation check.
In fact our direct neighbours were in a lower band despite having a significantly larger property.
The VOA (Redhill Office) said that our banding was correct but would consider whether "other properties in the area need to be increased"
.
They have said there is no right of appeal as we have not made a formal proposal - and from looking at the VOA website we don't seem to fit any of the criteria to make a formal proposal.

I'd love to know whether anyone has got to this point and managed to turn it around.
Thanks

lincroft1710

Ben - if the evidence shows sales which support Band E, then you have a hard task in front of you, especially if any are flats similar to yours in your road, whatever their current band. There is no such thing as "artificially high demand", sale prices reflect what the market will pay for that type of property, in that location, at a given time.

The VOA has a duty in law to correctly band each and every dwelling. They can therefore increase as well as reduce the band of a dwelling if evidence shows that the current band is incorrect. If a review of evidence shows that a previous decision and subsequent statement was not correctly made, the VOA can certainly amend the bands of all the affected dwellings.

Stating (with good reason) that the taxpayers' comparables are all in the wrong bands is known as "impugning the list". Although in itself this does not offend the rules of Council Tax law or Tribunal evidence there are many in the VOA who do not think this is a good approach. It obviously invites crticism (not unfairly) of the VOA. But if it is an irrefutable statement then it certainly is permissible.

Not being able to analyse the evidence it is impossible to say what value would have been placed on a garden in 1991. It could be that even without a garden some of those flats would still have achieved in excess of £88K (Band E min).

At such short notice it is now impossible for you to do your own research on 1991 flat sales in your area or bands of other local flats. If you did need more time to research your evidence you could always ask for an adjournment, but not knowing your Tribunal I don't know if it would be granted.

If the VOA evidence shows flats significantly different from yours, i.e. larger, more rooms, in significantly better and pricier locations then you should try to convince the Tribunal that they are not comparable with your flat.

I'm sorry that I can't offer you more positive advice.

greatneb

Thank you for your advice. My tribunal is this morning so I'll let you know how it goes. I only got the evidence last week but I have already had to postpone once and don't want to have to do it again, especially as it looks unlikely that I will win.

The main thing I'm worried about is being hounded out of my square after they raise everyone else's banding!

Ben