Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

em_fletcher

Local Borough Council: Wigan
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band After: B
Amount refunded: Not sure yet (5 years worth)

Did the check as per money saving expert guidelines, and called the office up - they were very helpful and friendly.
Then received a letter saying they were looking into it for 4 weeks.
Yesterday had a letter saying they have moved us to band B and will ask the council to prepare a refund

CARA8984

AUTHORITY : TONBRIDGE AND MALLING
BAND BEFORE : E
BAND NOW : D
SAVING : £280

Not as easy as i thought it would be but persistance paid off. In the end the lady who was dealing with my caes from the valuation office came to look at my property. Their measurements were all wrong and when i presented her with the evidence i had on other properties in my road which were worth 50k more but had a lower banding she told me that it would be foolish of her to try and defend my house banding at tribunal. she phoned me the next day to offer the lower banding and shes going to look at my neighbours properties too. HAPPY DAYS

Clairog

Local Borough Council: Glasgow City Council
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band After: B
Amount refunded: £744 :j :j :j
Annual saving going forward: not sure yet as I can't work out the form but payments have halfed for the rest of the year
Time in Property: 5 years

I live in a place called Croftfoot in Glasgow and apparently ALL the houses have been banded incorrectly so lots of claims going on.
I heard from a nieghbour rather than on here. PHoned the council and they sent me to the government claim site - took about 6 weeks after initial claim to get the big fat check - helping to pay for my attic conversion :T :T :T

suki01

My Encounter Was Not Simple. I Had To Attend A Tribunal Which Did Not Give Much Help. The Valuation Office Did Give A Measurement Of Cubic Capacity Which Was A Great Help. I Had My Property Re- Measured And Received An Apology And Rebate Dating Back To 1993.
Darlington Council.
Rebate Of £1,294.64.
Annual Saving Of £456.
Now Going After The Northumbrian Water Authority For Overcharging On A Non-existant Rateable Value And Obviously A Rebate..

Scary_

AUTHORITY : London Borough of Enfield
BAND BEFORE : C
BAND NOW : B
REFUND : £286.21

I live in a small development of 60 flats all built in 1992, I looked up the council tax bands for the flats and about half were C and the other half B and these didn't co-incide with the size of the flats. Also my lease document shows that when it was first sold in 1993 it's price was in Band B (so 2 years earlier in 1991 it would have been too).

The whole process was really easy, I wrote a letter explaining the above and e-mailed it to my local VOA office - this was on the 5th Nov, I had a letter confirming the band reduction last week and a cheque for £286 today (covering the time I moved into the flat until March this year)!!!

The great thing is that it didn't even cost me the price of a stamp! :rotfl:

Will be sending a note to my neighbours who are in the same boat to reccommend they do the same
This is the first time I've tried anything I've read on MSE and it's been an unfounded success, cheers Martin!:beer:

mr_&_mrs_skint_&_skint_jr

Just followed all of Martin's tips to the letter - it was so easy! I looked at what bands my neighbours were in and realised that I was in the same band (F) as my neighbour who lives in a huge property compared to mine. The people the other side were in Band E and I felt my house was more comparable with them. I did the valuation check looking at what I bought my house for and everything pointed to my house being in a Band E. I was slightly terrified that they might say I should be in band G but thought that was fairly improbable so held my breath and went for it! I sent a few emails and then got a letter saying that they might want to come and look at my property but they never bothered! A week later I got another letter saying that they had reviewed my banding and found I was in too high a band! Yippee - I get a refund of just over £500 before Christmas - I am over the moon! Thanks once again to this great site.
You don't know if it's worth it unless you try it. Do everything that is recommended before you take the leap though as they could just as easily put you in a higher band if you have not investigated properly.
Good luck!

fancythat_2

I spent several months wondering wether to give it a go,having used your site to calculate that we were 2 bands above where we should have been.

Eventually I just picked up the phone and got straight through to our local chap. I spent 5 mins on the phone explaining my reasons for asking for a reduction in the tax. He said he'd pass on the details to another..!?

I thought that would be the last I would hear. After a few weeks I received a new bill which had dropped me from band g to f with £272 credit!

Delighted with the result considering it was 5 mins of my time.

Thank you Martin.

cedarwood

Local Borough Council: Vale Royal
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: 2000

After reading the article, and checking the bandings I was convinced I'd been placed in the wrong band.

Don't let the fact that all your neighbours are in the same banding as you put you off! All mine, with similar houses are classed as band G (ie valued between 160001 and 320000).
I bought my house in 1995 for 130000, so was sure there was no way it could have been worth at least 160000 4 years earlier.

I phoned through to the valuation office, and was first asked why I thought I was in the wrong banding. No real detail was required. I was then asked a number of questions........was the house detached, did it have a garage, how many bathrooms etc. After this they said they would re-asses and get back to me.

I waited around 3 weeks, and was just about to call for an update, when I recieved a letter informing me of the band change.

Next, the council responded about 2 weeks later with details of the refunds, for each year I had been in the propoerty. I then needed to reclaim the outstanding balance, which took another 2 weeks.

Have now recieved a cheque, and am waiting for a review on any interest I may be owing.

Thank you Martin

P.S. money arrived just before Christmas, couldn't ask for better timing.:beer:

fouaces

It is only since the cosy cartel of agencies responsible for administering Council Tax have been challenged that the extent of the chaos in the system has been exposed.

Although we were always uneasy about our Council Tax banding there was a distinct lack of encouragement and helpful guidance offered to enable taxpayers to challenge the accuracy of the charge.

The locality, in which we live, under the jurisdiction of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, does represent a challenging situation in respect of Council Tax banding. Nevertheless, even accounting for a wide variety of age, styles, and size we were amazed by the volume of anomalies and inconsistencies.

It was disconcerting, to say the least, to discover that the application to review bandings is essentially a bargaining process. The initial offer to reduce our band from ‘E’ to ‘D’ was declined, quickly followed by a proposed amendment to band ‘C’. Confident of our facts we persisted with an amendment to band ‘B’, which was referred to the Appeals Tribunal. However, following a visit by an official our claim was conceded.

With the large amount involved and because we considered the process to be flawed we registered a claim to be reimbursed for loss of interest. We have just received a cheque for £1676-70 in respect of loss of interest.

The amendment of our Council Tax from band ‘E’ to band ‘B’ amounts to a refund of
£5792-25. The addition of £1676-70 for loss of interest makes a grand total of £7468-95. Our annual saving is £591-08.

We regard the process as little more than a lottery but we scooped the jackpot.

kas.kids

Local Council: North Devon District Council
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded: £1301.23

I read the articles and how to check the banding on our property. The results indicated I should give it a go.

Sent off the enquiry, received some forms to fill in (nothing difficult). It took approximately 8 weeks to get a response (the time indicated on the forms), but it was worth the wait. Not only did we receive a cheque for £1300+ but no more council tax to pay until April 2008.

Good result - many thanks.