Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

digi-ghost

Great success for me!

Local Borough Council: Chiltern District Council
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: £686
Annual saving going forward: ~ £400


I found the whole process very simple; gave the valuations office a call (they were very friendly), told them that (although we'd been in our house 2 and a half years) we'd been chatting to our new neighbours and realised they were on a lower band.

Received a letter from the valuation office telling me they were investigating, and then another one about 6 weeks later telling us that they'd lowered the band. Took another week or so the the local council to confirm that they were refunding themoney, and it turned up in our bank account shortly afterwards.

Absolutely brilliant - thanks MSE! :T

ovingite

Council: Aylesbury Vale DC
Previous band: G
New Band: F
Refund: £4113.17
Annual saving £363

For the sake of about 2 hours research, and using the guidance from this forum, I netted a stonking £4113.17 saving. As we have lived in the same house for a long time the rebate was backdated right back to April 1992. It was oh so easy and probably took exactly 2 months from sending in the claim form to receiving the cash in my bank account.
The only downside was that the council didn't write to confirm so I didn't know that the money was there - but I can live with that :j

Thanks MSE - an amazing result

Well_I_Never

Local Borough Council: St Albans
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded: £2400

I can't believe it - I'm new to MoneySavingExpert, and saw the info an Council Tax bands and thought I'd take a look at the VOA website to check we were on the same band as our neighbours. I never expected to find that we weren't, but there it was in black and white - we were on band F and all our neighbours were on band E. I phoned the local Valuation Office, who advised me to email a request for a review of our banding. I completed the form they sent, and received a letter 2 weeks later advising that they were reducing our band and refunding just over £2400. The money has hit our account today, 1 month after the initial call to the Valuation Office. Thank you so much for the advice.:j

Tilgates

:jThank You Martin - you've made our year!
Local Borough Council: TANDRIDGE
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: £1500 approx
Annual saving going forward: £340 approx

Followed user-friendly guidance on MoneySavingExpert.com and within 6 weeks we've managed to secure a significant refund and an on-going annual saving. Tandridge Council were quick and friendly in their communications as well. A positive experience all round. THANK YOU!!!!

toxicpixie

[
Anyways, I live in a 3 bed semi which is a band C. Half of the houses in the street are B and half are C. The neighbours are a band B but have more floor space due to an extension. Most C's are semi detached and the B's are terraced. However our house used to have a garage next to the house and a much bigger garden. At some point in the past this has been removed and some of the land has been sold to create a driveway to a property behind the street.

The street which our street comes off are all banded as B even though they are the same size and have bigger gardens. (and some have garages in the back garden) We do have off street parking in the place where the garage used to be, but our back garden is now reduced to a very small triangle shaped garden.

Is it still worth trying? Nationwide figures suggest at least one band lower on the sale price we paid. (but it is borderline A/B, but we might have bought it for a bargain)[/QUOTE]

I did try as my situation is similar because the person that used to own the house next doors also owned the house I live in and sectioned off most of the garden belonging to the house I live in after 1991, therefore you'd think less garden = less value and her house was altered from a Band D to a Band C (after 1991 but most likely before sectioning off the garden next door and adding it onto her land) however the VOA came out and measured up, my house is a mid-terraced and is valued at £155 - £165,000 and the house next door forementioned was sold for £210,000 last October and yet we are both in the very same Council Tax Band - which is a C despite my house having one room less downstairs, no back garden to speak of, less parking and much smaller amount of space upstairs 1 double and 1 single sized bedroom versus 2 double bedrooms, what can you do there's a huge difference but you're either lucky or you're not.

Its worth a try but usually the VOA have to admit to making a mistake and then the council have to backdate refunds to all those people who were living in the house under the wrong banding and going forward so what would you do? Both sides work for the council which I'm sure isn't related to the VOA decision but they certainly do seem to enjoy much bigger places for their £125 a month...

Someone within Tunbridge Wells Borough Council got a refund on this website 'Lord Stevens' from a G to an F I think but I have only seen the one so there you are obviously there are very few houses miscalculated within the TWBC area!.... Next time the house is on the market and if it actually sells, I will strongly consider moving 5 mins drive down the Road into East Sussex/Rother BC area....

Simon.Willins

Local Borough Council: Thanet
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band After: B
Amount refunded: PENDING
Annual saving going forward: PENDING

Simon.Willins

tonicoles wrote: »

Hi,

I am new here so go easy on me!! I applied to have my council tax lowered. All figures pointed to a band c according to the nationwide website and other houses in the area.

I have just had this rejected and have been told that the nationwide website is not accurate enough and the Gloucestershire Council has there own figures that they use.

According to the nationwide website in April 1991 our house was worth £62913 way below the band D figure figure for the South West.

Has anyone else had the same problem???

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

thanks

toni

Contact the valuations office. they will decide the value and instruct your council accordingly

deval

Local Authority: South Hams
Council Tax Band before: F
Council Tax Band after: E
Refund: 2996.00

I couldn't believe how easy this was!!! I receive MSE emails weekly and saw the info about incorrect tax bandings so checked mine out using the tools. I discovered that the only identical house in my small Close was a band lower. I bought the house new in 1992 so was living in it when council tax was introduced. As I had paid 125,000 for it I assumed the valuation was correct as that put it in band F. However when I looked at the "history" section for the neighbours house it was apparent they had originally been banded F too but had appealed at the time the grounds of what the valuation would have been in 1991 and won. The house had changed hands since then so the new occupants had no knowledge of this. I wrote to my local valuations office detailing all of this and was amazed when a couple of weeks later I received an ammended banding to E on the grounds of fair valuation and a refund to cover the whole period of almost 3000. It really was that easy!! Thank you MSE.

Glara

Council - South Lakeland.
Original Tax Band - E.
Amended Council Tax Band - D.
Rebate - £3600.
I had always thought that our house tax was too high at an E band. (t is a 4 bedroomed semi.)But one of the difficulties I faced was because it is an old stone built Victorian house I had no similar house to compare it with. Our next door neighbours house (the other half of the semi) was slightly smaller than mine and was banded at the D rate.
However by trawling through the net viewing other council tax bands of homes in my village that bore some resemblance to my house I ascertained that there quite wide variations, with some detached houses on Band D and even one on Band C.
I wrote to the council valuation office listing these properties and there lower tax bands and they replied that my tax band would be reduced immediately and refund of £3600 was sent to me by cheque.
Thanks Martin for the advice you ahve given regarding this subject.

JoSaving

East Riding of Yorkshire
Reduction from B to A
Saving - around £150 a year

I received several rejections on rebanding from my local valuation office, but when I decided to go to tribunal, the local office reconsidered by proposal and agreed that I was actually in the wrong band. I provided a great deal of evidence, but unfortunately it took going to the tribunal for the local office to actually review/consider the evidence I had provided. I just wanted to highlight that if you can provide reasonable evidence you shouldn't be put off your proposal by rejections from the local office - go to the tribunal!

My office actually tried to compare my one bedroomed flat to two bedrooms houses with gardens, so if something seems unreasonable, don't be worried about challenging it as sometimes it will take going to tribunal to get a fair response!:j