Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

jaybee44

Success!
Barnet Council
Band G
Now Band F

After hearing about the possibility of a band change I decided to pursue it and found I had been overpaying since 1998! So a nice cheque has arrived for £1,338 plus my band is reduced. So thank you for the information.

I have now followed your advice on savings accounts so will see how I do with that

MollyandButtons

Local Borough Council: Bury, Lancashire
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: £1,480 and no monthly payments for the rest of this year
Annual saving going forward: £300

Very easy to make the claim because the houses on either side were Band D. Re-banded in three weeks, but it was another 13 weeks and a formal complaint before cheque received from Bury council. They said they were short of staff ...

Thanks for this tip.

Mike O.

gsdjj

Local Borough Council: West Lindsey
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: None metioned as yet!!

Previously paying: £2164 PA!!!

One letter and 2 - 3 months taken to reply but Its a result..

Thank you Martin!!!!!!! xxxxxxxxxxxx

originalwurzel

I moved house about 18 months ago would I be able to claim against me old property, as I checked it through the steps on the site and it seems to be banded incorrectley.

kitycat

i have looked on the valuation website and they have just put my council tax from band b to c including the other modenr houses on my row. however the houses across the road (x-la) and other houses on the street are b and a! do you think i would be able to ask for revaulation?

thanks KAtie

anandp

Local Borough Council: Harrow
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: Either C or D
Amount refunded: awaiting response

Moved to the property less than 6 months ago and using the online Nationwide house price calculator, I put the numbers and dates in, for it to give me a figure of £78918 for the Q2 1991 valuation.

So I submitted the appeal proposal on this basis (for Band D) and then discovered that I had selected region: UK on the calculator instead of 'Greater London'. When I did this, it came back with £66601!!!

Back I went to the VOA website to re-submit for Band C.......awaiting a response!

AP

TETRAFLY

Local Borough Council: Liverpool
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band Afer: B

:j Another success story Martin, via your web site I followed the easy to use instructions and after about 2 months I received a cheque for £1368 with a futher cheque 3 weeks later for £258!

My house was built in 1994 and banded as a 3 beroomed semi, but builders never put the dividing wall to make the third bedroom on instructions of the new buyers.

I moved into the house in November 1995 and over the years have paid Council Tax as a Band C! Only when reading your web site did I consider challenging my banding, but thought it would be quite a daunting task. How wrong I was. The Valuation Officer called at my home within 3 weeks of my application, and said that she thought I had a good chance of a claim. Then the new banding was submitted to the Council, I did have to make several calls to actually get my money, but once I had a contact name the cheque arrived within 3 weeks!

Thanks again Martin, without your help I would be nearly £1500 worse off!:T

MOOK_2

Just wanted to say to anyone who has been disheartened by having their attempts to reband their properties denied....Don't give up so easily !!!! My partner and I went through the procedure back in Febraury to get out council tax rebanded from B to A and at the time were told " Youre wrong we're right...get lost " We didn't go to the tribunal as we thought we'd lose but a fortnight ago we received a grovelling letter basically saying that they made a mistake and the our house DOES need rebanding. I am hoping that we get a refund as we have been overpaying as tenants for the last 3 years and hopefully the original owner ( our landlord ) should get a rebate too, fingers crossed !!!

ben_and_elly

London Borough of Bromley
Previous Band F
Rebanded to Band E
No refund as just moved to property, however, previous owner would have been due total refund in excess of £3,000. Unfortunately, he had died so I am unsure who gets this refund.

We had to appeal to the Council and the first phone call we made originally stated that it would not be worth appealing, as all the other houses in our road were banded an F. We had moved from a two bed semi (Band D) in the same area to another two bed semi (albeit a larger property), so were confused as to the properties being two bandings apart.

After a few phone calls and letters we eventually got info we needed to appeal the banding. Letters went back and forth to the Council with them not wanting to budge. We were told we would have to sit in an Appeals Court and the Council provided the evidence they had used to keep us in the Band F. Thses were supposed to be like for like properties. Unfortunately for them, they had not really done their homework and had provided a list of properties in our area that they stated were "of similar size". These turned out to be either extended properties and the other was a detached property.

So, we took a clear photo of the detatched house to prove that it was detached and not semi and took photos of other properties that we found to be in Band E( We found this info on the internet) in our area and took this info to the appeal. We won the appeal on the grounds that the Council had provided incorrect information and that we had done our homework sufficiently. Had the Council given correct information, I don;t think we would have won our case as we were told that we were only just into a Band E.

My advice if you are claiming - get as much information as you can about other properties in your area, provide photos and don;t be afraid to go all the way to the hearing.

Previous owner would have been entitled to in over £3,000 refund.

Hope this was not too long winded I got a bit carried away- my first post!

CMB_3

After reading Martin's article I contacted my local VOA office in February and told them that I thought that my valuation was incorrect as the majority of houses in my close were 'E' banded. They said that they would check and respond to me within eight weeks. They did not reply until July but the good news was that they agreed that the valuation was incorrect and reduced me to 'E' Band. A few weeks later I received a cheque from Redditch Borough Council for £1,799. My ongoing saving will be £300 per year. Local Borough Council: Redditch
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded:£1,799
Annual saving going forward: £300

Thank you Martin!