Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

thewad

5 minutes research and an e mail to the relevant VOA just requesting they look into it for my aged mother in law.
6 weeks later she is £1200 better off.
There is no hassle at all it's just so easy...apply and you get a yes or no...no win no fee and that's doing it yourself.

Kirklees M C

janerak

Wondered if any one could help me out I applied for my concil tax rebanding and SUCCESS !!!! they only problem is that when I originally bought the house it was with my husband we have since got divorced and the council will only refund me the years from when I was on my own and not when I was married even though I paid the council tax !!!! Is there anything I can do about it, they have said that if I get written permission off him then they might be able to look in to it... The problem with that is we dont speak and as he left me with a lot of debt I dont think it fair for him to get the refund which would add up to thousands. Any suggestions ????

Shanker

janerak wrote: »

Wondered if any one could help me out I applied for my concil tax rebanding and SUCCESS !!!! they only problem is that when I originally bought the house it was with my husband we have since got divorced and the council will only refund me the years from when I was on my own and not when I was married even though I paid the council tax !!!! Is there anything I can do about it, they have said that if I get written permission off him then they might be able to look in to it... The problem with that is we dont speak and as he left me with a lot of debt I dont think it fair for him to get the refund which would add up to thousands. Any suggestions ????

If the council tax was solely in your name then they should pay up. If the council tax was in joint names then you will have to talk to your ex-husband and if you do get anywhere, hope that he is benevolent.

I live with my wife. My name is the only name on the council tax for our property. The bills all come to me.

When Margaret Thatcher first brought in council tax (poll tax), it was paid by each individual person. When that very unpopular tax was abolished, the tax was on the property regardless of how many occupants are within.

If you were the sole name on the arrangement, I can only summise that they are backdating payments made by you since you became a single occupant, (which I believe they do discount for). If this is the case then you need to explain and straighten this out with them (the council that is).

Good luck - let us know how you go on.

madmoggies

Local Borough Council: Wiltshire
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: £250 for part 2011/12 and £365 less to pay for rest of 2012/13
Annual saving going forward: £365 (based on 2012/13)

We bought our current home last summer but didn't move in full time till earlier this year. As it was exactly what we were looking for and in a lovely area and situation we accepted that council tax would be high.

However, looking online recently at the tax bands for nearby houses of same or more rooms and/or floor area I discovered they were all in lower bands. Likewise, using the calculator on this site, with purchase price and date, indicated it should be towards the bottom end of the band beneath. Even taking into account a reduction the seller offered for us to buy quickly (which we took up) and previous optimistically high prices we'd seen the house advertised for during the year before we bought it, it would still have been well within the lower band.

I thought we would be out of time for asking for a reduction but reading here that banding can be changed at any time I thought it worth a try - nothing ventured, nothing gained!

After less than 4 weeks from emailing the relevant Valuation Office two letters arrived for us, one from the Valuation Office saying that the banding had been reduced and backdated to 1993 and the other from the Council to tell us they would be reducing monthly charges for the rest of 2012/13 taking into account last year's rebate and this year's reduction. There were also envelopes from the Council for the previous owners, which we've passed on to the Estate Agent who should be able to send them on via the sellers' solicitors - a surprise for them as they moved here over 20 years ago.

Thanks, Money Saving Expert!

P.S. Looking at properties in the same postcode, I noticed a couple of others have the same 'effective from' 1993 date as ours has just been given, so assume they too have been re-assessed at some time in the past and we are just catching up.

spinmecrazy

Local Borough Council: Watford
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: 3,500
Annual saving going forward: 270

Try it, it took a while but so worth it.

Martin I love you!:money:

hoppingfrog1

Local Council - Wigan
Council Tax before - E
Re-banded to a - D

Followed the instructions on Martins website and I am now £4500 pounds better off! I had always assumed, from when it was first introduced, that everyone in our street was the same banding - BIG MISTAKE! After bringing up the local councils council tax bandings, I was able to see that every other house in our block was a D banding and we were an E. Whole process took about 3 months to complete, I am amazed that all these years we had made this assumption. Keep up the good work Martin!

Ade1701

Before: Band B. After: Band A. 6 year refund of over £600! :beer:

After moving into a rented flat above a shop I had a terrible time sorting out the numbering and address with the council street naming and numbering department, but I'm glad I did!

The property is in an old Victorian terrace, and when valued the properties had obviously been recently converted into shops on ground floor and living accommodation above. Mine (39) was the flat over 37 and had the property's original front door showing number 39. The shop had become 37. Problem was, the Royal Mail had no listing of 39 under the postcode:mad:, so I had terrible trouble with utility companies and any shopping on websites using address lookup software. Even the council had my council tax listed as flat at/over 37, and as a consequence a lot of my post was being delivered to the shop, which incidentally was run by my landlord. Mostly fine, but it meant there were delays and in any event, there are always some letters you'd rather not have left on the side in a shop open to the public!

Anyway, once the street naming and numbering department had been persuaded of the correct address and that there was no other 39 on the street, things were much simpler for about 5 years. This helped with all sorts of things like isp, gym, Amazon and phone company accounts. I always intended to look at the council tax banding, but had never got round to it.

A couple of months ago, I got a promotion and a move to London.:j The prospect of moving spurred me into submitting the rebanding application following the guidance on MSE, which for Solihull Council involved an email to the Valuation Office. I included some google earth photos :cool: showing the comparable footprint of the flats, and which also helpfully illustrated the presence of a garden to the rear of 35, which was band A, whilst my flat was in Band B with no such outdoor space, no central heating, double glazing, gas supply and only one bedroom. Listing all the properties along the terrace mine stood out as the only one bedrooomed property not in band A.

Valuation Office responded with confirmation in a voicemail and said they'd be notifying the council. I then had to chase the council tax department a couple of weeks later who, despite having renumbered my property on the bill were still confused about the history. Once I persuaded them it was their job to sort this out with the Valuation Office and not mine they recalculated and sent me a credit by BACS for over £600, just in time to cover some solicitor's fees for my move to London where I'm finally getting on the property ladder! :j

One key point! :money:
In applying for a mortgage you need to have all your evidence of identity, address and credit reference clear. Having sorted the address issue out meant that my electoral register entry, all bank and credit card addresses, student loan, driving licence and council tax bill show exactly the same address. This helps provide a clear picture of your identity for potential lenders to assess risk. If I'd left bits and pieces registered at my parent's address (less than a mile away, and where I could have easily collected post, so it might have been tempting) then the picture would have appeared much more complex. Allowing different bodies to record my address inconsistently (flat at 37, flat over 37, 39 etc) might have made it a real mess!

Just goes to show that even now there are incorrect bandings that need correcting, and you can get a refund of overpayment dating back years!

fLaMePr0oF

A neighbour made a challenge so we waited to see what their outcome would be - they were successfull and subsequently the VOA also re-banded several neighbouring properties including ours :j

Wycombe District Council...

Before - Band D
After - Band C
Refund - circa £900 - £1000 (after 6 years in the property with an annual difference between bands of £150 - £160)

Have received the official letter of notification from VOA of the alteration to the Valuation List from 01-04-1993, now have contacted the council and just waiting for them to pay up!

Dave_Lowery

Local Borough Council: Stockport
Council Tax Band Before: D
Council Tax Band After: C
Amount refunded: £2326.67
Annual saving going forward: £174 per annum

Saw the site mentioning "drive by" banding and website for checking against others on the road. Found we were on a higher banding as we had an extension built prior to 1991, which on an outside viewing would have looked like we now had 4 bedrooms BUT we had made the small box room that we had into the main bedroom so we were still a three bed semi. I did not even have to write to the valuation office, I just phoned them and explained. They looked into it and Bingo! dropped a band and a week later, received a lovely payment into my bank. In all, it only took 2 weeks from start to finish.
:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

barnabee

Local Borough Council: Newport, Wales
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: expected to be approx £1200 to £1400
Annual saving going forward: £226 per annum

Thanks purely to this website I checked the Welsh council tax bandings for my family. I noticed my sister and her neighbour were on a higher band than other similar houses in her street.
I made one phone call to my local VOA (very helpful) and sent one letter. Within 28 days the VOA investigated and informed my sister that a clerical error had resulted in her being incorrectly banded and they have now downbanded the property.
On checking the VOA website they have already amended the band for her neighbour as well.
Result. Cost under £1 to do and only took about 2 hours - thank you to everyone at the MSE team.