Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

getsct

Local VOA offices to close in next few months are Aylesbury, Grimsby, Kidderminster, Swindon and Tunbridge Wells, with another 5 still to go!

MSE_Jenny

Martin will be going on Radio Five Live this week to talk about council tax reclaiming.

They are keen to speak to someone who has had a big council tax refund success. It will only take five minutes! If you'd be up for it, please private message me, including your name, telephone number and how much you got back.

Thanks very much!

Duckcm18

Hi just a quick message, I live in Essex and had looked at the Council Tax reclaiming article before, checked online and found all the local properties to be paying the same and assumed that was right. I revisited it this morning and for some reason decided to look at the values of nearby streets using partial postcode information, which showed that a couple of properties a few streets away and one in a street opposite were in a lower band. I went to have a look at the properties, one was identical and two are bigger. I also noted that as I live in a flat the whole block is banded the same and the small terraced houses across the road too. I thought this couldn't be right as the upstairs have 2 bedrooms I only have one, and I think the terraced houses must have at least 2 if not 3 bedrooms. I checked the valuation ofmy property in 1991 and it showed I should be in A lower band. A short phonecall to the local VOA and they seem to have me listed as a 2 bed and are going to review my band. I should hopefully have an answer in 6-8 weeks. I'll update with what happens, just goes to show that sometimes a little digging can get results.

emmaBZ

hi i have just done the valuation online and in 1991 it would have been in band A we are now in band B along with most of our street . i dont understand how this works so can anyone tell me if i have a claim or not ?

lincroft1710

Emma, it's difficult to say as house price indices/calculators tend to be inaccurate. If you can find similar houses in the neighbourhood in Band A then that would help your case. If not you'll just have to use the online calculator as your reason for requesting a reduction.

Sponge

We moved into our house in Feb 2001, paying just under £38,000. Using the calculators that places our house in Band A for 1991.

It's a two bedroom, mid-terrace property. It needed substantial modernisation, e.g. new kitchen, bathroom, double glazing, centreal heating, decorating, which we did.

There are 26 properties in our road. 6 are Band A, the rest B. We're Band B.

It's worth noting that although the houses look very similar, they're a mixture of 2 and 3 bedroom properties.

According to the Direct Gov website, the properties listed as Band A are shown as 'With Effect From: 01/04/1993 '. The others (B) have no such entry.

I'm tempted to request a rebanding saying my house is only a two bedroom and other such properties are in the lower band. Backed up by the price we paid and equivalent 1991 value. However, I'm worried that the changes we made after we moved in, plus the fact I boarded out my loft for storage (but not just boards on floor, but boarded walls & ceiling, painted, put carpet down and fitted a pull-down ladder), will prevent a band reduction.

Anyone got any experiences of successful rebanding in a similare situation?

Igotothefootofourstairs

Hello this is my first posting here and I wondered if anyone could help me with some advice what to do.

My situation is this: I inherited a bungalow from my mother when she passed away back in 2006, but I have lived here most of my life certainly since 1991 where my mum and dad always paid the council tax.

And as part of the solicitor’s role of getting information for probate, inheritance tax and so on the property was priced by no less than the district-valuer.
This was for Dec 2006 and he assessed the value with considerations and deductions for a poor state and so on at £210,000.
The region is just outside Bristol but comes under Weston-super-mare (north somerset) for council tax.
This is a 3 bed bungalow and does have a large garden but he reckoned the garden didn’t matter too much with the valuation.

Now using the MSE calculator and the figure of £210,000 & backdating to the date of council tax start it puts me in band C whereas they have me in band D.

Now I did phone the valuation office or what I thought was the right dept somewhere in Weston super mare just after the probate was done and they were most dismissive and arrogant in attitude saying that the assessment was right because of the type of property and when mentioning the district valuer saying “well you don’t understand, it just doesn’t work like that”.

To cut a long story short they asked me to write to them giving the reasons why I thought it was the wrong band which I did and got back letters a few weeks later saying essentially it was correct in band D.

I figured so many people had already put in and they had paid thousands back in rebates that they had instructed to limit the flow. And it is pretty demoralising for as you don’t know where to go next. So I gave up for then and have recently decided to look again at especially as neighbours have built large extensions & second bungalows in their gardens and still appear to be in the same band D.

What do you do?

lincroft1710

Igoto

Council Tax valuations have to ignore poor state of repair, all dwellings have to be assumed to be in a reasonable state of repair. A valuation for Inheritance Tax is for that purpose only and do tend to be lower than open market value. House price indices are in fact inaccurate.

VOA have no "constraints" regarding reducing CT bands, if they believe a band is wrong they'll reduce it, if they don't they won't. They're not the council so have no financial interest in how much CT is paid.

Under present CT legislation, bands cannot be increased on account of alterations or extensions until after the property is sold. "Second bungalows" will have their own CT bands if they are self contained units.

Given the fact that it's a 3 bed bungalow and the 2006 poor condition value was £210K, then Band D doesn't seem unreasonable, especially if happens to be detached.

I don't know if it is worthwhile for you to seek a further review, you would have to look for similar size 3 bed bungalows in the area in Band C to try to support your claim.

lincroft1710

Sponge wrote: »

According to the Direct Gov website, the properties listed as Band A are shown as 'With Effect From: 01/04/1993 '. The others (B) have no such entry.

The presence of a date indicates that the bands have at some time been reduced.

I'm tempted to request a rebanding saying my house is only a two bedroom and other such properties are in the lower band. Backed up by the price we paid and equivalent 1991 value. However, I'm worried that the changes we made after we moved in, plus the fact I boarded out my loft for storage (but not just boards on floor, but boarded walls & ceiling, painted, put carpet down and fitted a pull-down ladder), will prevent a band reduction.

CT valuations have to reflect dwellings in a reasonable state of repair, your purchase price probably reflected a poor state of repair and will distort any calculation to find a 1991 price from a house price index which is already inaccurate. Improvements other than those which would bring the property into a reasonable state of repair should be ignored, but as D/G and CH are now more or less the norm, these might not be ignored. The loft improvement will be ignored, in any case it would not add much to the value

It's certainly worth a go on the basis other 2 beds are Band A

littlesaint

I'm wondering whether it is worth me doing this. On our street most of the properties are terraced houses and are banded D or above. But five properties have been converted into two flats, including ours. Six of these flats are in band B and four (including ours) is band C. The other band C flats are end of terrace and are significantly bigger than ours. Of the six in band B, four flats are the same size as our - they are both conversions like are ours and have a similar sized extension judging from Google Maps. That makes them at least a one bedroom flat like ours, if not bigger. None of them are our immediate neighbours (they are all unconverted houses) - does this matter? They are only about ten doors down. Would this be enough information to put a convincing case to Wandsworth Council or would I have to gather more information about number of rooms of other properties / valuations etc. Thanks in advance.

Ooops - this might be the wrong thread for this. If so please let me know and I'll delete it.