Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

nobthetrucker

Local council   Birmingham 
Council TaxBand Before  C
Council Tax Band After    B
Amount refunded    £3360
Annual Saving   £210

Followed Martin Lewis's advise and it worked very Happy with the results 

Terryh

Local Council Walsall

Old band D

New band C

Refund £4,000

Saving £20/month going forward

All houses around were band C for semi detached, mine was band D. checked land registry and my property was registered as Detached. Successfully challenged

Bizzywizard

Hi,
Has anyone had their band moved up by 2?
I am looking at a house in G band, but all around are band E and D and one F. The F band is a massive house with loads of land. Mine is a standard 4 bed detached with separate double garage with a standard garden. The problem I have it was new build in 2001 and looks nothing like the houses close to it (ie very old). I would expect it to be in the E banding (this is a deceased estate). Can anyone help?

lincroft1710

Bizzywizard said:

Hi,
Has anyone had their band moved up by 2?
I am looking at a house in G band, but all around are band E and D and one F. The F band is a massive house with loads of land. Mine is a standard 4 bed detached with separate double garage with a standard garden. The problem I have it was new build in 2001 and looks nothing like the houses close to it (ie very old). I would expect it to be in the E banding (this is a deceased estate). Can anyone help?

Do you mean moved down?


It can happen but would be a rare occurrence. See if you can find houses of a similar age and size not too far away and see what band they are in. What bands are similar houses in, which are for sale at similar prices to the one you are interested in?


I certainly wouldn't suggest buying the house in the expectation that the band would be reduced. Even if it was reduced, it may only be by one band and there is no guarantee of even this.  If you can't afford to pay Band G, then you should think very carefully about buying the house.
 

Scrobbage

This was super easy.

local council East Devon

old band D

new band C

refund £3037

saving moving forward £24/mth

Following watching the ITV programme, I looked into our Council tax. We moved into our house in August 2006 and were told the property was band D. After watching Martin’s programme I looked into ours.
We live in a village in East Devon, there is only on property the same as ours, it was a C. Then I checked the value of the house in 1991, tricky as it was built in 1993, but it’s value then was easily in band C (£54,595), House prices data showed the prices had only fluctuated by about +or- 2% in the area between 1991 and 1993, I quoted all of this to the valuation office and within 8 weeks had a reply confirming it was being rebranded to a C and back dated to when we moved in.
I did only compare to 1 property as no others to compare with

mouseshadow2001

I’m finding dealing with VOA very frustrating. My house is band c, the other 5 are b. We are 3 pairs of semi detached built in the 1960’s, with a single detached house in the same style. After much investigation, and being told that in 1993 I was the biggest house of the 7, and the only house close in size was no 13 as it is now, it looks like the information they have on me from 1993 is incorrect, having us at 144 square metres. In 1993 we had a single storey extension and a dormer window, whilst no 13 has a two storey extension to the side plus a single storey extension at the back but VOA still thinks we are bigger than them. Looking through the paperwork it looks like the size of the extension done in 1981 had been incorrectly recorded by 30 square metres. I have sent the the valuation from when we bought the house in 1987 (rejected as too old by 2 years) a letter from the planning office stating the extension was 54 square metres, the original builder/architect plans which are to scale and which a local architect used to calculate the building at 114 square metres, our calculations of the square meter age using the new extension which replaced the old one in 2000, and recently our certificate of energy efficiency which puts the house currently at 133 square metres (we replaced the single storey extension with a bigger two storey one in 2000. They rejected our assessment on the grounds we couldn’t compare ourselves to other houses on the street, when the basis of our appeal was their basic information was incorrect. We can’t even appeal as they say it was am informal assessment so there is no right of appeal

lincroft1710

mouseshadow2001 said:

I’m finding dealing with VOA very frustrating. My house is band c, the other 5 are b. We are 3 pairs of semi detached built in the 1960’s, with a single detached house in the same style. After much investigation, and being told that in 1993 I was the biggest house of the 7, and the only house close in size was no 13 as it is now, it looks like the information they have on me from 1993 is incorrect, having us at 144 square metres. In 1993 we had a single storey extension and a dormer window, whilst no 13 has a two storey extension to the side plus a single storey extension at the back but VOA still thinks we are bigger than them. Looking through the paperwork it looks like the size of the extension done in 1981 had been incorrectly recorded by 30 square metres. I have sent the the valuation from when we bought the house in 1987 (rejected as too old by 2 years) a letter from the planning office stating the extension was 54 square metres, the original builder/architect plans which are to scale and which a local architect used to calculate the building at 114 square metres, our calculations of the square meter age using the new extension which replaced the old one in 2000, and recently our certificate of energy efficiency which puts the house currently at 133 square metres (we replaced the single storey extension with a bigger two storey one in 2000. They rejected our assessment on the grounds we couldn’t compare ourselves to other houses on the street, when the basis of our appeal was their basic information was incorrect. We can’t even appeal as they say it was am informal assessment so there is no right of appeal

What is your question?


I don't know what part of the country you are in but even for a 114 sq m 1960s semi, Band C does not seem excessive.  If there had been a 54 sq m extension in 1981 then this would mean the original house would have only been 60 sq m, if you are claiming the house size following that extension was only 114 sq m. If the house was genuinely only 114 sq m, then it seems there was probably an error in recording the area (144 instead of 114) back in 1981.


If a dwelling has been further extended, then I understand the VOA can take this into account when considering a CT band reduction request. Therefore Band C would not seem excessive for a 133 sq m 1960s semi.


As you are nearly 30 years too late to make a formal appeal, then the VOA's decision is final, there is no recourse to a Valuation Tribunal hearing.


A 1987 sale price is of little use,. I'm ex VOA and we very rarely looked at sale prices prior to 1990.  

WestHammerMan

We moved into our home in February, and realised our Band was the same as other people living on the same road with much bigger homes with more rooms etc.
We appealed, and got confirmation that our Band was being lowered from F to E, and backdated accordingly. Wasn't a hugely difficult thing to do, and got a letter from our Council Borough about 2 weeks after the decision, detailing the refund & new charge, as per details below - 
Local Borough Council: Waverley BC
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded: £450
Annual saving going forward: approx. £80 per month

anskyber

Local council Cornwall
council tax band before E
council tax band after D
amount refunded £7504
Annual saving £490

This was a refund backdated to1999. We followed the instructions on the website and it was probably a 50% chance of success but we did research local houses on various websites and came up with 5 good examples of band D similar in value and size to ours. Well worth trying as a higher band wouldn’t have resulted. The process took about 10 weeks. 

ThatchedWoman

Local Borough Council - Mid Devon District Council
Band before change -G
Band after change - F
Amount Refunded -£4683.12

The possible snag for us was that we live in a unique period property in a sparsely populated area so weren't sure of having anything to compare with. But Martin and all you site users gave us the confidence to investigate. Thanks!! We proceeded as follows:

1. The Nationwide house price calculator came up with a value of £158,106, hence putting us in the F band. 2. Using estate agents' brochures, our local knowledge of the area (we are avid property watchers!), and the Check Your Council Tax website we made a shortlist of 5 other nearby properties. We found some pretty erratic banding once we started to dig into the facts and we chose the most flagrant examples from a longlist. Estate agents basically did the work for us by boasting about their properties and providing photographic evidence. Here's how we justified our search criteria: 

"Here are details of 5 properties that are either somewhat bigger or substantially bigger than ours but in a lower council tax band. All are detached period thatched houses in their own grounds. Because it is a sparsely populated rural area and our house is a unique character property, we have needed to use a slightly larger comparator search area (3 miles) than for an urban setting."
We emailed the request to ctinbox@voa.gov.uk together with supporting evidence (estate agents' brochures) and have just had confirmation of the rebanding from our local council. 12 years' worth of refunds. The whole process took just under 3 months.