Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

pendle_2

Great success
Phoned valuation office to let them know 2 neighbouring properties were band C I was band E
received a letter 2 weeks later to confirm I would be re valued into band C Today had letter from local council confirming I was due for rebate of £3448.64 !! Any chance of interest on all that money!!!

heavens1

MSE_Archna wrote: »

This thread is especially for reporting your successes in getting your council tax rebanded plus refunds.

The aim is to show others that it works.

Please report your successes here, if possible in the format:

Local Borough Council: East Staffs Borough Council
Council Tax Band Before D
Council Tax Band After: C
Amount refunded: £1450
Annual saving going forward:

Plus if possible a few details on your experiences.
Very easy from the web site to work out a valuation of the property, we have owned it since 1977. Checked out similar properties for banding. The valuation officer was non committal but listened to what I had to say. He responded within the stated time frame and bingo we are getting our money. No interest payable on the sum though unless I take it up with the valuation officer even though the Council has had the excess for all this time. Very easy it took me about 1 hour altogether including phone calls to the valuation officer and the local council. Thanks Martin

• Read the article
  Council Tax Cashback
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  Discussion on Council Tax Cost Cutting

IMPORTANT NOTE! This thread is only to report succcesses

Please note this thread is ONLY for reporting successes/experiences. It isn't for answering questions, discussing what to do, or postulating on the general issues; any posts of that nature will be deleted. If you want to do that please instead go to the Discussion on Council Tax Cost Cutting

[
Local Borough Council: East Staffs Borough Council
Council Tax Band Before D
Council Tax Band After: C
Amount refunded: £1450
Annual saving going forward:

Very easy from the web site to work out a valuation of the property, we have owned it since 1977. Checked out similar properties for banding. The valuation officer was non committal but listened to what I had to say. He responded within the stated time frame and bingo we are getting our money. No interest payable on the sum though unless I take it up with the valuation officer even though the Council has had the excess for all this time. Very easy it took me about 1 hour altogether including phone calls to the valuation officer and the local council. Thanks Martin
/quote]

janebruce2

The VOA cannot change your band until you sell your property , no matter if you have have put 3 extensions on !! So if you have lived there since 1993 and still live there now it should be in the same band .

dick_turpin

Fantastic Martin...So many thanks due to this site!

We have been re-banded from E to D and have been in the property since 1996 so expecting a letter from Borough Council soon...
The questions now are...
Can I get a full refund or will they try and retain this years payments?
Do you receive a breakdown of the calculations?
Do you get interest?
Can you claim against overpaid water rates?
Sorry thats four questions:o

nicko33

Local Borough Council: Lichfield DC
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: £0
Annual saving going forward: £300-ish

This was back in 2004 when we bought the house as a new build.
Posted off the form with a bit of info working backwards from current price, using Nationwides house-price inflation figures for the area, back to the original bands.
No problems, they just re-banded it straight away.

jezhuggins

Thank you Martin as a result of following your guidance we are now paying at least £140 less Council Tax each year and have a credit of some £1400 (no Council tax payments this year then)

Absolutely brilliant and just in time as we are about to retire

Suffolk Coastal District Council - was Band D re-banded to Band C - hoo ray

Keep up the good work

lilacsam_2

Leicestershire Band B to Band A.
With the help of this amazing site, i was able to check out every single house in my street, all of them being identical, however out of 23 houses 12 were band B and 11 were band A !!!

Thanks to you Martin, with your simple instructions, i was able to contact the VOA, initially by phone and then put it into writing.
As you rightly said, they may try and fob you off with the 6 month cut-off, but i insisted and a further form was sent to me for me to outline my reasons for appealing.
took 6 wks to the day and £1,200, back-dated to 1993, was debited into my bank account today.
Many thanks once again.

cootuk

Local Borough Council: Bradford
Council Tax Band Before: B
Council Tax Band After: A
Amount refunded: £610
Annual saving going forward: £120

Very easy to do this now the valuations office and councils are geared up for it.
We noticed that four houses in our section of street were band B, with ten others band A, so we are letting our neighbours know of our successful rebanding and how to organise it.

Scousegirl_2

Local Borough Council: Wirral
Council Tax Band Before: D
Council Tax Band After: C
Amount refunded: £1000
Annual saving going forward: £153

With the help of this site, we've just had our council tax band reduced from a D to a C and a refund of almost £1000! I'll be telling the neighbours as they'll also qualify I'm sure!

Thank you for such a great site - keep up the good work!:j

pleased_as_punch_2

Local Borough Council:Chester City Council Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded: £3000+
Annual saving going forward: £248

Hi, after hearing about your web page I went on to have a look, I allways thought that I was in the wrong band,so after viewing your instructions I proceeded to carry them out. So a trip to the valuation office with a letter indicating that I was the only F band in my post code. The valuation office sent a reply within 10 days saying that I had been rebanded E the council tax office followed two weeeks later with the documents to claim my refund a few weeks later Big cheque thank you very much.:D