Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

Shanker

Well I'm not voting Labour again!

My wife is in agreement and if my daughter and son in law decide thats the way they want to go I'll disinherit them.

Labour are evil.

theloft

Shanker wrote: »

Well I'm not voting Labour again!

My wife is in agreement and if my daughter and son in law decide thats the way they want to go I'll disinherit them. Labour are evil.

Now it's turned into a political thread, tell me how you can save money by not voting for ANY of the political parties !

Shanker

lincroft1710 wrote: »

If you do not live in the 2nd property your name should not be on the electoral roll for that address. I'm not even sure you should have had 2 votes when your main residence was in another part of the country and the flat was your holiday home.

Prior to recycling most rubbish was just dumped straight into the tip. If more people were employed by the council then your council tax would go up which you wouldn't want.

If you take the trouble to look at the council's literature on where the money goes, education takes a large bite of the cherry.

As you're in Wales there was a revaluation in 2005, which I understand was done in house by the VOA so estate agents weren't involved. If you want to blame anyone about the faults of the 1993 council tax system then blame the Conservatives. They were in power then and wanted a quick fix solution to the problem of the Community Charge and were not prepared to pay to get the job done properly.

OK, I don't live in it but I am paying for empty bins to be emptied, I'm paying for the education system that is swallowing up a the majority of the council tax and I'm paying for the North Wales Police to sit at the side of the road with speed cameras plus I'm contributing toward the council workers non-contributary gold plated final salary pension scheme that will never be in any danger of closing apparently.

So what can I expect for the money I'm paying in council tax on the empty flat that I cannot sell because of the current and on-going financial climate that is no fault of my own? Why should occupancy be a condition of having a say in who represents you at local and national level? I'm certainly paying for the privelidge (twice over). It was originally called Poll Tax, to me the words Poll and Vote are inextricably linked.

You are wrong in that the rubbish was not sorted prior to dumping. In Wolverhampton where I used to live, I have actually witnessed the process of sorting prior to incineration or recycling. If the same doesn't happen in other places then that is an remiss of the council not I.

By passing over the responsibilty of sorting the waste, one would have thought that would have led to a few redundancies of council workers jobs, thus exacting a saving but it doesn't. Why because, now they are employing even more people to take the different boxes, bags and bins away on different days of the week using several different types of waste removal vehicles all pumping out filthy diesel fumes because they aren't maintained. The "carbon footprint" has actually got bigger instead of smaller!

I do take a look at the council literature, and I treat it with complete and utter contempt. If you can't see through all the bull s*it then you should have gone to Spec Savers!

I cannot lay the blame as you do at the Tories door. The difference between 1993 and 2005 is 12 years. We continually hear Labour MPs harping on that this and that were worse under the Tories, but they have had 3 terms, 2 Priministers, the rise and fall of the systematic liar Peter Mandelson was like the ebb and flow of the tide and Lord knows how many Cabinet reshuffles and still the situation is no better - in fact it is a damn sight worse!

The structure and principles behind the Community Charge or Poll Tax as it was named, was one of Thatcher's biggest errors in judgement. I remember my parents and my kid brother who was living with them, all having to stump up about £500 a year each when previously they were only paying less than half of the overall total for the household as a whole. Nevertheless, post riots and after it was all sorted out everything was considered fair and equitable, that is until 2005 when Labour started getting their grubby hands on it.

The re-evaluation as you say, happened in 2004/05. It was initiated by Labour not the Conservatives. It was done for various reasons, some because house prices had increased, people not being able to afford to move so they extended, the addition of conservatories and sheds which John Prescott wanted to target, but basically it was because Labour were running out of ways to increase stealth taxes. Left upto Labour, I would be paying to look at the sea, even though the house was built in the early 70's.

Our flat never changed physically. It was never added to, it just had internal decoration occasionally, but it went from Band A to Band C. The VOA as you call them, never even set foot over the threshold. I don't know how you can make a judgement from the seat of a car parked up outside, do you?

So we get back to the subject, it was left up to my wife and I to go cap in hand and ask for a formal evaluation. These are risky in that the greedy b*astards could increase the banding, never mind reduce it! But having researched the values of properties in the immediate area we went in with a bit more confidence that we would succeed in getting it down. Succeed we did but only by one band to Band B. We got our refund and we in turn refunded our ex-tenant for the time he resided there.

We later found out from a friend of a friend that the policy of the evaluators was to rate all properties at least 2 bands higher than they were originally. Also, not one single property in the area was re-evaluated lower than their original band, which would have at least demonstrated that there was some element of fairness in the system. They were trying it on and hoping that no one noticed, which is typical and despicable and displayed that there were underlying ulterior underhanded motives.

It is small wonder that most people hold these people in the most utter contempt - they do nothing to avert it!

I still won't be voting Labour!

lincroft1710

I'm not asking you to vote Labour, I'm just pointing that neither political party was without fault during their periods of government. Which does not mean I am suggesting you vote Lib Dem, Plaid Cymru, UKIP, BNP, Green or any other party.

England was due to have a revaluation in 2007 but it was cancelled by the govt. As 1993 CT was based on 1991 prices and 2005 reval on 2003 prices and the band values were also changed. I would doubt your flat would have been worth less than £44K (Band B min) in 2003 so a 2 band drop was optimistic. I doubt the accuracy of your friend of a friend's claim. Sheds and conservatories make little difference to the value of a property and extensions were being built long before CT came into being. I should know I've measured enough of them!

The VOA don't need to inspect properties when there is a reval as they already have the details on file. They also have details of virtually every property sale in Britain. Prior to the short period of Community Charge (only 3 yrs) we had the rating system which had revaluations in 1956, 1963 and 1973. So revaluations are nothing new.

If you can't sell your flat why not go to the House Buying and Selling part of the forum and post a Rightmove link so people can have a look and tell you why they think it's not selling.

Finally if you want to whinge about something you should be posting on the Praise, Vent and Warnings part of the forum. BTW I don't need to go to Specsavers.

kelmeg2favgirls

Oh I love this site

Already successfully reclaimed bank charges in the very early days before they froze claims - got over £2k back, done my PPi's and got some back on those, so now set about council tax banding.

Am currently in a Band C for a 3 bed semi, only some of the other properties in my street are Band B, others are a C but thought it was worth ago trying to get mine reduced, has taken about 6 weeks but got a letter today saying they are rebanding me to a B and backdating it to 1995 when I moved in - yippeee

Will put the money towards a much needed holiday which we couldn't have afforded this year without this money

Thank you thank you thank you Martin, you're a star xxxxxxxxxxxxx
:j

bobosbaracas

Local Borough Council: Milton Keynes
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band After: B
Amount refunded: 145
Annual saving going forward: 1080

So simple! and I have lived here 9 years

Follwed MSE's tips and found everyone in my street to be band C, thought that was game over... however, there are many houses the same as mine in the area and identified one in band B.
Emailed the local valuation office, advised I should be revalued due to
a) my street contains 3/4 bed semi's with garage and mine is 2 bed terraced yet all on band C
b) A house the same as mine in another street is in band B
c) My house was bought in 2001 for the band B price.

Got a form back (very simple one) was shocked thought this was going to be longwinded.
Filled it in
6 weeks later got a letter back to say now band b and the update had been sent to milton keynes council to update my account.
Next letter was from Milton Keynes council wiping out my debt for the 2010 council tax and refunded me automatically for £145.

Over 9 years I paid about £15 extra per month for each installment - got it back now though:j
Thanks MSE!

xx

Ford_Escort

Local Council: Cheshire West and Chester
Previous Band: F
New Band: E

Amount Refunded: £3,769
Amount Saved this year: £330

We have been in our house since late 1990 (we paid £117k) and recently started looking at the amount of council tax we pay. After checking the lists, we saw we were higher band than 2 of our neighbours who have essentially the same house. I phoned the local valuation office in Crewe and explained why I was querying the banding (comparable neighbours and the price we paid only 6 months before the valuation date of April 1991). The lady took the details and said she would look into it and come back to me. She said it would probably be about 8 weeks. After only 4 weeks I got a letter telling me that our band was reduced from F to E and that the effective date was April 1993. That was in Mid Feb this year. On Monday this week, a letter arrived from Cheshire West and Chester with a revied bill for this year which was £330 less than the original and also that the amount to be refunded was £3769 which has now been paid stright into our bak account. Overall a great result for a very simple phone call.

dark1

Shanker wrote: »

You are wrong in that the rubbish was not sorted prior to dumping. In Wolverhampton where I used to live, I have actually witnessed the process of sorting prior to incineration or recycling. If the same doesn't happen in other places then that is an remiss of the council not I.

By passing over the responsibilty of sorting the waste, one would have thought that would have led to a few redundancies of council workers jobs, thus exacting a saving but it doesn't. Why because, now they are employing even more people to take the different boxes, bags and bins away on different days of the week using several different types of waste removal vehicles all pumping out filthy diesel fumes because they aren't maintained. The "carbon footprint" has actually got bigger instead of smaller!

Sorry, but this is rubbish... no pun intended. I don't know what it was you think you saw, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been sorting general waste for recycling to any meaningful degree. The sheer volume of waste that incinerators & landfill tips get, it wouldn't just take a couple of blokes to sort it; it would take an army of people costing taxpayers a fortune!

My dad used to work on the skip lorries, and I used to go with him. We would see bin lorries stream through the gate, they'd tip their load, and the bulldozer would come in a flatten it ready for the next one. That's it. That's what happens to your general waste.

So basically, these are the two choices; a 2 bin system, or chuck everything in landfill like the good old days. I'm guessing if you think it'll save you a couple of quid a week, you'd be okay with the latter, right?

I'll leave the rest of your equally 'insightful' rant to lincroft. Normal service is now resumed.

jturner30

Local Borough Council: Nuneaton and Bedworth
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Refund: £1530
Annual saving: approx. £300

Wow! Thank you so much! I saw this article in February and made my initial enquiry at the end of February. We received our cheque this week so in all it took about 6 weeks - as the banding office said it would. This is a very impressive result.:T

lincroft1710

Ford Escort - as 1990 prices were higher than 91 I am surprised you didn't appeal when CT first came into force. Still better late than never and a great result.