Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

CSL_2

Well done Colin Pates on your refund from Melton Borough Council.

Would be great to hear some good news from those in any of the Inner London Councils:- Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Tower Hamlets.........

Even a few good messages of success stories from any of the half dozen Outer London Councils would be good news. Just wonder why no success stories ever appear????..........

CSL
Thursday 17th January 2008

pixiepp

Martin
I read your article on council tax rebanding with great interest. I can happily report that I have succeeded in getting our property re-banded;
L.A. = South Lakeland Council
Band Before = C
band after appeal = B
refund = £1,170.00
annual saving approx = £160
I made a phone call to the V.O. who responded very quickly and appointed an investigating officer who in turn came to visit (with tape measure) after about 4 weeks. A decision was reached within two days and we got a cheque from the L.A. about two weeks after that. Fantastic!!!
Thankyou very much!

CSL_2

pixiepp wrote: »

Martin
I read your article on council tax rebanding with great interest. I can happily report that I have succeeded in getting our property re-banded;
L.A. = South Lakeland Council
Band Before = C
band after appeal = B
refund = £1,170.00
annual saving approx = £160
I made a phone call to the V.O. who responded very quickly and appointed an investigating officer who in turn came to visit (with tape measure) after about 4 weeks. A decision was reached within two days and we got a cheque from the L.A. about two weeks after that. Fantastic!!!
Thankyou very much!

Fantastic C to B reduction - South Lakeside Council.

No reports of success stories from Inner London Council residents:-

Would be really great to see a lot... a few... or even one success story from anyone in a VOA (Inner London Council) say Southwark, Lambeth, Greenwich, Lewisham, Camden, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Islington or even Wandsworth.

My gut feeling is that VOAs with responsibility for inner London Council Tax reviews are administering the legislation in a far harsher and stricter way than in other parts of England.

CSL
Monday 21st January 2008

mark.allen_2

I live in the south holland area and was banded down from d to c,auto matically am i able to reclaim the overpaid amount whilst in the higher band to be backdated .

pyri

Last September we received a cheque for £2082 from Northampton Borough Council after rebanding our house from G to F. Period involved was 10 years, and ongoing savings will be in the order of £290 per annum and rising. One phone call was all it took to initiate this, then 4 weeks for the district valuer to get back to us with the good news.

Note: They did try to fob me off with no further payements for the following 6 months plus cash, but I told them I wanted a full refund and to carry on paying at the corrected rate for the current year, taking into account what I had already paid.

Many thanks to Martin Lewis for publicising the whole council tax issue.

westie666

Local Council: West Lothian Council
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band After: B
Amount refunded: £180
Annual saving going forward: £125

Process was very easy, just emailed the Valuation board, and they wrote back saying that I was outwith the 6 months allowed to report this, but they looked into it any way :rolleyes:, and decided I was in the wrong band! £180 for litterally 3 minutes work!

W666

pat36w

Following your articles on Council Tax banding my husband decided to look into ours. We discovered that our neighbours were all on a lower banding despite our house being smaller in size and sale value. At first we were told that we were out of time with the appeal. We persisted because we genuinely felt that the appeal was proper. This took some persistence and effort (worth it). Eventually it was decided that since another neighbour had made a successful appeal ours would be granted, too. We received a cheque for >£2000 and the band was changed from E to D. As we are now pensioners this will be of enormous value in yuears to come.

Thank you so much, Martin

:j

CSL_2

Congratulations!!

You did not mention which Council. I am willing to bet that it was not any of the following:-

Camden, Lewisham, Westminster, Lambeth, Southwark, Merton, Wandsworth, Greenwich, or Tower Hamlets.

CSL

save_a_tree

Hi There,

I'm new on here and still trying to navigate my way around so apologies if I'm in the wrong place with this Qu.

I have worked throught the process and established we are on the wrong band (should be A and we are however, we are the smallest house in our 'block'. We live in a semi-rural location and on our road there are no 2 houses the same.

Ours is a 1900's 2-bed terrace which was added on the end of a block of other houses (stone built) along with our neighbours house (the end one) which is a 3-bed end terrace. Next door is a double fronted 3-bed as is the one next to that. On from there are 2 more mid terrace but older and stone built not brick and both have either out buildings or extension. (Hope you are still with me )

I am going to try and find out over the weekend if these 2 terraces are 3 bed etc. but am i still able to challenge as we are the only house in our block which is smaller/has no outbuildings etc.... so cannot use the line of our house being a higher band than the most similar house in our block.

Sorry this is long winded and possibly even in the wrong place

avaline_2

Council: Stockton on Tees
Old Banding: E
New Band: D
Refund: £1,640
Annual Saving £300+

Dead easy! I live on a small development built in 1996. My road has just 12 houses & on checking the bandings it was obvious they listed 3-beds as D, 4 beds as E and so on. I wrote querying the bandings & within weeks had a letter confirming the rebanding, quickly followed by a cheque.

They also re-banded the two other houses that are identical to mine - and as the neighbours have lived there since they were built, they got around £3k for doing nothing at all!! Hubby told them it me that got them the money but so far no bottles of wine have appeared on the step! Oh well - I guess you cant have it all!

God, I love this site!!