Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

doraspenlow

lincroft1710 said:

doraspenlow said:

How geographically close do comparable houses need to be?
I live in a new-ish small estate in a village. There are no other houses in the estate that are the same as ours (4 bed terraced). We're in band E. All the other houses in band E are detached 4 beds, which are more valuable than ours. However, there aren't any other 4 bed terraced houses in the estate to directly compare.
The developer who built our estate has been adding further estates in the village and I have managed to find a few other 4 bed terraced houses among them. They are in band D. They appear to be similar floor size to our house, although they are three storey houses whereas ours is two storey.
These properties are less than a mile away as the crow flies. Basically one side of the village to the other. Would I be able to use them as evidence?

If you are in a terrace, are the other houses in the terrace smaller? Remember that because of the width of Band E, it is possible that the 1991 value of your home could be £90K whereas the the detached could be one third more - £120K.

There is nothing to stop you using houses on the other side of the village. The VOA may counter with your side of the village is more desirable and thus prices are higher, plus usually a 3 storey house would be cheaper than one of a similar size but only on 2 floors. 

Thank you. This is really helpful.

I've been in contact with a lovely person at the VOA this morning. She went to check and said that I couldn't use the three storey houses to compare for the reason you say. She was, however, able to tell me that they had the square meterage of my house on file and the number they have is nearly 50% bigger than I think it is. She's opened a case for me. I've offered four of my neighbouring houses as evidence. They all have one fewer bedroom than mine but they are very similar in size: the two ajoining properties were originally meant to be 4-beds like ours and, if anything, they're a smidge bigger.

I've supplied a few documents as evidence. Fingers crossed.

lincroft1710

doraspenlow said:

lincroft1710 said:

doraspenlow said:

How geographically close do comparable houses need to be?
I live in a new-ish small estate in a village. There are no other houses in the estate that are the same as ours (4 bed terraced). We're in band E. All the other houses in band E are detached 4 beds, which are more valuable than ours. However, there aren't any other 4 bed terraced houses in the estate to directly compare.
The developer who built our estate has been adding further estates in the village and I have managed to find a few other 4 bed terraced houses among them. They are in band D. They appear to be similar floor size to our house, although they are three storey houses whereas ours is two storey.
These properties are less than a mile away as the crow flies. Basically one side of the village to the other. Would I be able to use them as evidence?

If you are in a terrace, are the other houses in the terrace smaller? Remember that because of the width of Band E, it is possible that the 1991 value of your home could be £90K whereas the the detached could be one third more - £120K.

There is nothing to stop you using houses on the other side of the village. The VOA may counter with your side of the village is more desirable and thus prices are higher, plus usually a 3 storey house would be cheaper than one of a similar size but only on 2 floors. 

Thank you. This is really helpful.

I've been in contact with a lovely person at the VOA this morning. She went to check and said that I couldn't use the three storey houses to compare for the reason you say. She was, however, able to tell me that they had the square meterage of my house on file and the number they have is nearly 50% bigger than I think it is. She's opened a case for me. I've offered four of my neighbouring houses as evidence. They all have one fewer bedroom than mine but they are very similar in size: the two ajoining properties were originally meant to be 4-beds like ours and, if anything, they're a smidge bigger.

I've supplied a few documents as evidence. Fingers crossed.

The VOA use the Gross External Area method for measuring houses, estate agents and developers tend to use Gross Internal Area or even Effective Floor Area, both of which will give an overall smaller size than GEA.

doraspenlow

Ah, okay. Got you. That said, they make it 157m/sq whereas I make it 106m/sq

I think they've counted in our garage (integral), but not counted the garages belonging to the neighbours, which are detached. 

lincroft1710

doraspenlow said:

Ah, okay. Got you. That said, they make it 157m/sq whereas I make it 106m/sq

I think they've counted in our garage (integral), but not counted the garages belonging to the neighbours, which are detached. 

Given their wealth of experience in measuring property, it would be most unusual if they have included your garage. If they had made such an error, it would be very easy to spot. Garages should not be included in the area of a property. 

Analyst

The VOA are using incorrect house dimensions and house price index data (which is disallowed) to reject our request for a banding change.

lincroft1710

Analyst said:

The VOA are using incorrect house dimensions and house price index data (which is disallowed) to reject our request for a banding change.

The VOA use Gross External Area to measure houses, whereas developers and EAs use Gross Internal Area, thus there is an explainable difference. What are your reasons for believing the VOA have used an incorrect HPI (which are unreliable anyway and rarely used by the VOA)? 

Analyst

lincroft1710 said:

Analyst said:

The VOA are using incorrect house dimensions and house price index data (which is disallowed) to reject our request for a banding change.

The VOA use Gross External Area to measure houses, whereas developers and EAs use Gross Internal Area, thus there is an explainable difference. What are your reasons for believing the VOA have used an incorrect HPI (which are unreliable anyway and rarely used by the VOA)? 

The VOA disallow the use of HPI because it is unreliable, but then use it as their main argument for rejecting a reduction in banding. Also the "smaller" house that has a lower banding is clearly a similar size from Google earth, the building plans and having been inside to look. It is not smaller, and if anything would sell for more than our property if it ever came on the market.

lincroft1710

Analyst said:

lincroft1710 said:

Analyst said:

The VOA are using incorrect house dimensions and house price index data (which is disallowed) to reject our request for a banding change.

The VOA use Gross External Area to measure houses, whereas developers and EAs use Gross Internal Area, thus there is an explainable difference. What are your reasons for believing the VOA have used an incorrect HPI (which are unreliable anyway and rarely used by the VOA)? 

The VOA disallow the use of HPI because it is unreliable, but then use it as their main argument for rejecting a reduction in banding. Also the "smaller" house that has a lower banding is clearly a similar size from Google earth, the building plans and having been inside to look. It is not smaller, and if anything would sell for more than our property if it ever came on the market.

Can you quote what the VOA actually have said about HPI in their reply?

If the "smaller house" is of a similar size to yours, then the VOA may have undermeasured it and thus could be underbanded or they could have overmeasured yours. Only a site visit or viewing dimensioned builders' plans could determine which one was incorrectly measured or identified.

Analyst

lincroft1710 said:

Analyst said:

lincroft1710 said:

Analyst said:

The VOA are using incorrect house dimensions and house price index data (which is disallowed) to reject our request for a banding change.

The VOA use Gross External Area to measure houses, whereas developers and EAs use Gross Internal Area, thus there is an explainable difference. What are your reasons for believing the VOA have used an incorrect HPI (which are unreliable anyway and rarely used by the VOA)? 

The VOA disallow the use of HPI because it is unreliable, but then use it as their main argument for rejecting a reduction in banding. Also the "smaller" house that has a lower banding is clearly a similar size from Google earth, the building plans and having been inside to look. It is not smaller, and if anything would sell for more than our property if it ever came on the market.

Can you quote what the VOA actually have said about HPI in their reply?

If the "smaller house" is of a similar size to yours, then the VOA may have undermeasured it and thus could be underbanded or they could have overmeasured yours. Only a site visit or viewing dimensioned builders' plans could determine which one was incorrectly measured or identified.

"The housing market was subject to a fall in prices from 1991" That is all the decline stands on. The context is that the first sale of a similar property was 1995, so that is the only price evidence I could supply. Naturally it is less than the top of the lower band, and lower by enough to have been realistically below that band in 1991. You can make it any figure you like by applying a suitable index, national, regional, local etc would all give different answers.

lincroft1710

Analyst said:

lincroft1710 said:

Analyst said:

lincroft1710 said:

Analyst said:

The VOA are using incorrect house dimensions and house price index data (which is disallowed) to reject our request for a banding change.

The VOA use Gross External Area to measure houses, whereas developers and EAs use Gross Internal Area, thus there is an explainable difference. What are your reasons for believing the VOA have used an incorrect HPI (which are unreliable anyway and rarely used by the VOA)? 

The VOA disallow the use of HPI because it is unreliable, but then use it as their main argument for rejecting a reduction in banding. Also the "smaller" house that has a lower banding is clearly a similar size from Google earth, the building plans and having been inside to look. It is not smaller, and if anything would sell for more than our property if it ever came on the market.

Can you quote what the VOA actually have said about HPI in their reply?

If the "smaller house" is of a similar size to yours, then the VOA may have undermeasured it and thus could be underbanded or they could have overmeasured yours. Only a site visit or viewing dimensioned builders' plans could determine which one was incorrectly measured or identified.

"The housing market was subject to a fall in prices from 1991" That is all the decline stands on. The context is that the first sale of a similar property was 1995, so that is the only price evidence I could supply. Naturally it is less than the top of the lower band, and lower by enough to have been realistically below that band in 1991. You can make it any figure you like by applying a suitable index, national, regional, local etc would all give different answers.

My last 12 years of working in the VOA were spent dealing with CT appeals. As the VOA has details of 99.9% of property sales in the country, it was easy to see how house prices were falling between 1991 and 1993/4/5 by reference to actual property sales rather than using HPIs. If it is of any use to you, in my area we established the fall between 1991 and 1995 was around 25%.