Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

sirius_snuffles

My father-in-law was told by the council that he couldn't appeal against the band. I subsequently bought the house in 2003 and about 2 months ago lodged an appeal - the VOA advised that I had no legal grounds for appeal, but they do have a duty to maintain accurate records. After a couple of weeks they confirmed that the appeal was succesful, and we and the in-laws both got refund cheques with covered all the way back to 1/4/93!! Excellent and thank you for championing this issue.

Local Borough Council: Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: £2900
Annual saving going forward: £300

:T

PolarBear_3

I tried to get back money from the council for the house I used to live in. It seems you cannot get a refund unless you're still living in the same property.

AWK_2

Local Borough Council: Bromley
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: 1758
Annual saving going forward: approx 250

Yep - straightforward. Followed the guide, so got the 1991 valuations etc., phoned up Valuation office, they phoned 2 weeks later to ask questions about number of rooms etc in house, then a week after that got the statements from BCC since 1997 showing old and new payments, then a letter confirming we were now on band F.

One thing to note - they initially negated this years CT bill, which we instantly asked to be changed back to normal DDebit, with a cheque for the 1758 instead - we wanted the interest, not them!

That was sorted out very quickly to be fair, and the cheque has now been deposited in our high interest account, so thank you very much Martin!

Whole process took 4 weeks or so, very painless indeed.

regards
Adam

philswannie

Local Borough Council: Poole Borough Council
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded: £1,131
Annual saving going forward: £280

Thanks for the advice on your site, very straightforward, just one phone call to the VOA office, they did come round to value house and result 10 days later. Whole process took approx 2 months.

Woodville

Just received notification that my banding has been reduced from F to E, backdated to 1993, and without asking, my next door neighbour has also been reduced! I think the valuation office realised that as there were only three of us on the developement, and one was in band E, and the other two in band F, they have awarded a reduction to my other "F" neighbour as well. Needless to say, they are over the moon too, so it looks like I will not only get about £2,600 back, but also a great meal on my neighbour, who will also receive it. Took a lot of persuading the Valuation Listing Office, but using the Nationwide house price calculator certainly helped, I would recommend everyone to use it when assessing their 1991 values, and emphasise the result to the Valuations Listing Office. Cheers, Woodville.

Woodville

Sorry left this bit out,
Local Council: Tendring District.
Band before: Band F.
Band After: Band E.
Cashback: Approximately £2,600
Annual Saving: £307pa for 2007/8, (rising annually!).

Cheers Woodville.

stuart_harris

rugby borough council
band before b
band after a
amount refunded £1419.62

Cheers martin,
The council tax payer strikes back.Thanks to you bringing this to the media i have claimed a rebate back to 1993.Quite straight forward this one,a call to the valuation office after checking the bandings down our street confirmed i had a strong case for a banding review,this was strenghtened by the fact they had us down as having a extra bedroom as well.Lo & behold 7 weeks later i was looking at the voa,s web site and found we were now a band A.Another quick call to them confirmed a letter was on its way & rugby council had been informed of the change.The only slight downside is that council tax has doubled in the last 10 yrs & so the difference between the bandings decreases as the years roll back.Calculated on the difference on this yrs bill between A & B the rebate should have been £2000+.Still an exellent result though.I would urge anyone to check the voa website to see what band their neigbours are in now & more importantly the banding history of the propety.:money: :beer:

CMoney

Really thrilled with your advice on council tax rebanding.
We are in Babergh District Council, previously Band E, just been reassessed to band D. Saving £300 per year, and just received £2600 refund since 1993!
What a wonderful success. Thank you soooo much. :T

Maisie

PolarBear wrote: »

I tried to get back money from the council for the house I used to live in. It seems you cannot get a refund unless you're still living in the same property.

That's right PolarBear you can't get a rebanding if you've left the property.

However if you contact the current occupiers of the house and persuade them to go for rebanding and if they are successful you will get your share of the rebate.

Look at the 'council tax discussion' thread. Plenty of advice and many similar cases to yours.

HTH

Maisie

[Deleted User]

Rotherham B C
Band reduced from FtoE
£2400 refund backdated to 1993
Annual saving this year 300
Followed your advice and it took 10 weeks to get a result.
I looked up the banding of similar houses on our estate found those which were banded E.
Checked the selling prices in the last 6 years and deescalated them back to 1991.
cheers Chris.