Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

lincroft1710

Angie371 wrote: »

I enquired about our council tax about 5 years ago and was told it was definitely correct. I did some research and asked for a rebanding in March this year. I had a letter back saying that we were in the correct band. I asked the valuation officer to call me. She had our house listed as a 3 bedroom instead of a 2 bedroom.

This highlights the necessity of checking that the VOA have the correct info about your home when you ask for a re-banding

Angie371

The VOA were not keen to help me. I had to pay at my expense for copies of the original plans to prove I was right. It was like "Computer says no".

lincroft1710

Angie371 wrote: »

The VOA were not keen to help me. I had to pay at my expense for copies of the original plans to prove I was right. It was like "Computer says no".

As they had previously checked and confirmed the band 5 yrs ago, the VOA would not want to spend any more time or effort on the matter than was absolutely necessary.

Keith_F

Local council -Wiltshire.
Band before. F
Band after. E
Refund £6797
Saving pa. £730

Some 10 years ago, my local council refused to change my council tax band, insisting it was correct.
A few weeks ago, I again challenged it, this time via the valuations office.
They agreed with me and changed my band from F to E.
Today they have notified me of 25 years of refunded payments totalling ............
£6,797.93!!!

This is a seriously good day! :money::money::money::

GimmeABreak

My sister was visited today by an assessor and the assessor said he felt their was no reason why her Council Tax band wouldn't be changed from Band C to Band B.

Think its about 10 years she has been in her current house so she is thinking she will get close to £2000. She has some arrears, so will the refund go towards those or will she get repaid the full amount?

She is happy either way obviously but I said to her that she would be better clearing other, higher interest, debts rather than her council tax arrears?

Thoughts?

lincroft1710

GimmeABreak wrote: »

Think its about 10 years she has been in her current house so she is thinking she will get close to £2000. She has some arrears, so will the refund go towards those or will she get repaid the full amount?

She is happy either way obviously but I said to her that she would be better clearing other, higher interest, debts rather than her council tax arrears?

Thoughts?

No, no, no!!! She would be chased for her CT arrears.

But it is academic, as she will be refunded any overpayment of CT, so the arrears will be paid before she receives any money.

Labsuper

...don't count your chickens either!

TriciaA

Hi Martin,

As we were about to move house, I saw your item about the Council Tax banding in the weekly newsletter, and thought that we had nothing to lose by following your easy guide to checking if we might be entitled to a re-valuation.

Having been in that property for almost 25 years (we moved there in December 1994), my husband had previously contacted the local council, Spelthorne, years ago, to query the banding, but was basically told to go away, which at the time he did!

This time, I did all your suggested checks, and became more and more convinced that we were in the incorrect band - a number of identical houses on the same development as ours were in a lower band (Band F, instead of Band G). I sent off a one page letter to the Valuation Office, detailing why I though we were in the wrong band, and supplying them with the evidence as you advise, and had a fairly quick acknowledgement of our appeal, but this said that there may need to be a 'site visit' in order to assess our case. Frankly, I wasn't that hopeful, but about three weeks later, just after we had moved house, we received another letter saying that we had been successful, and the Council Tax banding for our old house had been reduced to Band F, from Band G!

That was the easy bit - trying to get Spelthorne to pay the refund has been much more challenging! We were told that as the potential refund was going to be over £1000, we had to complete a claim form, which we did - quickly. We then heard from our old neighbour, who had lived in the house before we bought it, that Spelthorne had been in contact with him, and sent him a refund of over £1000 for the period he had lived at our old address. That made us quite excited about the possible refund we might receive, and now I can understand why Spelthorne were less than keen to send us any money. After numerous phone calls, and promises that the refund payment was being processed, finally, earlier this week, my husband sent a formal letter of complaint to the Council.

Today over £8000 was transferred into his bank account - can't believe we had overpaid this amount of money, but even more amazed that we have been able to get it back - all thanks to you, Martin and the MSE site!! At this stage we have not had a breakdown of how this has been calculated, but frankly, I can live with that ommission!

The annual saving going forward, for the family who have bought our old house, will be about £400 per year, at the current rate of Council Tax in Spelthorne.

Cannot thank you and the team enough for highlighting this issue, and I would encourage everyone to double check their current banding to see if they may have a case to submit an appeal. :j:j:T:T:rotfl:

Brightfuture2011

Hi All

A question to all the council tax forum posters, a refund that has been mentioned.

I have lived in a lot of houses because I moved around a lot. Would I be able to research this and challenge it from 1998 onwards.

Leicester
Rotherham
Sheffield 2 places
Basingstoke
Torquay
Leicester



Kind Regards

lincroft1710

Brightfuture2011 wrote: »

Hi All

A question to all the council tax forum posters, a refund that has been mentioned.

I have lived in a lot of houses because I moved around a lot. Would I be able to research this and challenge it from 1998 onwards.

Leicester
Rotherham
Sheffield 2 places
Basingstoke
Torquay
Leicester



Kind Regards

You can only challenge the band of the dwelling in which you currently live or any dwelling you currently own which is vacant. You can of course check the current CT band of any dwelling in which you previously lived, and see if it has been reduced since you lived there and if so approach the council for a refund of any overpaid CT