Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

Barbie_Anne

Thanks to Martin and his sound advice :money: we carried out the appropriate checks and discovered that our neighbour in an identical house was in council tax band D, whereas we were in E. We requested the VOA to carry out a reassessment and are pleased to report that our banding has now been reduced to D.

Details as follows:

Broxtowe Borough Council
Previously Band E
Now Band D
£1355 refunded
Annual saving of £347

:j

Lindfield

Pleased to say that I followed the tips on reducing my council tax and have successfully changed from a G to F, this has resulted in a £200 rebate for this year and a £300 saving for next.:j

smreynard

Council: North Kesteven District Council
Was Band: B
Now Band: A
Refund: Will be around £500
Ongoing saving: c. £102 a year

This is my daughter's house. I told her the band was too high back in 2004 but she was told she couldn't appeal because she had lived there over 6 months. However, Martin's campaign must have had an effect as she phoned them again a couple of weeks ago, they took the details down and she has now received a letter saying she will be rebanded as an A! She is delighted it happened so quickly and easily, thank you Martin!

sprokit

sprokit wrote: »

Not had a result as yet - went through the site info and checked - we are B as are many on our street - but others identical (plus our neightbour) is A.

Been there since before the Poll tax started and know that when we bought the house in 89 it was well below the £40,000 threshold. Took it up politely with the authorities to be told our house was obviously a modernised one....NO ...it was basic council house with no frills. The asked why we had never queried it before - so I told them that we had wrongly assumed that it had been properly assessed and had gone up in price that much in the 2 years since buying it (despite having done nothing to the property). Took a lot of talking and they finally brought out the forms to fill in - should hear something back in about 2 months (her last comment was, "we are really busy with this at the moment, and if your house is reduced the others will be done automatically"......can't see them doing that somehow!!!!!)

will wait and see

got our reply today - and not the 2 month wait originally mentioned - we have been rebanded from B to A with backdated to 1993 - nothing about the refund mentioned as yet - but well pleased. Just had a knock on the door from a neighbour to ask me if I knew I was being overcharged......she too heard today that they have been rebanded (but only because , like us, they had queried it). Thank goodness for sites like this which make the process easily understood - and the advice well worth following.

strangeglue

Local Borough Council: Lambeth
Council Tax Band Before: B
Council Tax Band After: A
Amount refunded: none yet...

I appealed my band as the other 6 studio flats in my house are in Band A and I was in Band B. The appeal was rejected almost immediately (October), and I eventually got a hearing date for late March.

To be honest I wasn't planning on attending the hearing, it was scary and as I've only been in the flat since July and don't plan on staying past my year contract I would lose about the same amount of money by taking the day off work as I would gain in a refund. Thought I might try my luck with sending in written evidence, but wasn't holding out much hope. Then yesterday got a letter from the Listing Officer saying he'd re-evaluated and was rebanding me to Band A, backdated to April 1993.

Now I'm just hoping for a refund cheque...even though it'll be small, it counts for something right?

Skieasy

wee_scottie wrote: »

Council: East Dunbartonshire, Scotland
Council Tax Band: G

Since April 2007, have been putting Martin's proposals to the test, step-by-step, (my file could choke a horse). Council stated that my claim was not valid because of the "six month rule". Attended an Appeal Hearing last week (there were ten cases). We were all rejected under the "six month rule". Is it only English Councils who award successful claims? Where do I go now? :mad:

Don't know if Scotland works differently to England, but see Skieasy comments on 20th February 2008. The " six month rule" is the first line of rejection commonly used by Councils, so you will need to be persistant and remind them that they have a legal duty to apply the correct banding.

Also note comments on Appeals to be conducted by outside bodies from April 2008 - in England anyway, don't know how this will apply in Scotland - so hearings will not be conducted by those who applied the ruling now being challenged.

Good luck!

Skieasy

marcolo wrote: »

good old MSE for raising this topic but I have hit a stone wall with my council, city of edinburgh, they say I could only appeal if I had done so within 6 months of being banded in 1993. Loads of similar properties in my street lower banded than me. Seems that I am going to continue to be penalised for the forseeable future unless anyone out there can help

See reply to Wee Scottie's post, same comments apply.

peterandalex

MSE_Archna wrote: »

Local Borough Council: Dover
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: £1400
Annual saving going forward: £302

I have recently used this site to successfuly challenge my banding, reducing it quite considerably each year and receiving a sizeable rebate. I would certainly not have achieved it without the excellent way Martin has set out the Appeal procedure.

The one point I wish to make and I do not know whether other District Councils do the same, is that when I submitted my initial appeal application, they immediately sent me a computer generated letter stating that my Appeal was unsuccessfull and that I had no right of appeal.

I phoned the Valuation Office and established that they had NOT even read my claim and had this letter sent automatically. I queried why I could not appeal as they had not even looked at my appeal and they stated I could have a second review where the banding would be looked at. Obviously, I did this and received confirmation that I was successful in under two weeks.

The point is, that they obviously hope that some people will not proceed any further when receiving this computer generated letter.

debbs

Well I reported my success on here for the reduction of my band but had some more good news this week. Where I live is in a small cul de sac with 6 bungalows and one of these residents used to live in my bungalow. She approached me to say that following what I had done to get my band reduced she had been contacted by Fenland District Council and they were offering her a rebate from when she lived at what is now my home. Well she has got her cheque now like I have mine as she's bought me some choc today to say thanks and the £1,600 she tells me is spent already! More success and I must say that I was surprised that the council just offered the money without being asked for it. Just got to get her band reduced now as she is in the wrong band too. Watch this space and I hope to be back to report more success for the 5 remaining bungalows that I am helping to be put in the correct bands.

colneygirl

Local Borough Council: Dacorum
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: should be around £300
Annual saving going forward: around £300


I followed the advice and appealed within 6 months of the purchase of a new-build.


My house seemed to be of the same band as similar houses but when I used the Nationwide House Price Calculator I found that I should have been just inside Band D. I thought the appeal might not be upheld but knew that the worst that could happen was that I would stay on Band E, so it was worth a shot.


The appeal was acknowledged quickly and then a month later we had a letter which insisted that we were in the correct band and also stated: 'In respect of the Indices you refer to in your proposal, whilst these are useful to show general market trends due to the large geographical area that they cover and the differing types of properties that are all included together their useful is quite limited when considering a specific location. It has been agreed by various Valuation Tribunal Service panels that this is the case.' A withdrawal form was enclosed for use or we had 2 weeks to supply more information for consideration or they would assume we wished to take the matter no further.

We couldn't supply any further information so we left it but 3 weeks later had an acknowledgment of receipt of appeal any way, with confirmation that they would list an appeal within 6 months. 4 months later we had notice of a hearing set for a month later, for which we had to 'provide as much evidence as possible to support your case'.


2 weeks before the appeal hearing date we had an agreement to alter the valuation list form which moved our house down a band. We therefore had to do very little in the end - just investigate the websites and fill in the on-line form (and have a bit of bottle to ignore their letters insisting that you are wrong)!