Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

Lee_G_3

Local Borough Council: Havering
Council Tax Band Before: D
Council Tax Band After: C
Amount refunded: £126

OK the amount that I got refunded isn't an incredible amount but it's certainly not bad for making one phone call and writing one email.

Checked out what everyone at my postcode was banded as on the VOA website, 99% were C's, whilst smack bang in the middle was a D for me. Called VOA and had a few questions to answer with regards to the property. They advised in could take 2 months to process; 2 weeks pass and I get a letter advising they are rebanding our house to a C in effect from 1993!!! Shame I've only been here a year, otherwise would have been a nice big sum!! Didn't take the council too much longer before the money was in my account and I'm now paying less than i was before.

Well worth checking to see if your property is incorrectly banded!!

barbie_2

Local Borough Council: Ealing
Council Tax Band Before: D
Council Tax Band After: C
Amount refunded: £845.18 plus our tenants got a refund too
Annual saving going forward: £152

Many thanks Martin for all your tips on how to do this.

lcramb

Local Borough Council: Perth & Kinross
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: £3000
Annual saving going forward £350

I have just heard that a cheque for just over £3000 is in the post!!

I followed the advice on the website, and although my neighbourhood check was in my favour (the only identical house on our development was in the lower band), the price check was not. I went ahead and claimed anyway, and was delighted to hear today that a refund cheque covering 12 years of overpayments is on the way.

Marie_Woodward

Council - Newark and Sherwood
Council band D before
Council band C now.
Refund £1700

Thanks to your programme about Council Tax banding we have just received over £1700 back due to us being wrongly banded. It took only minutes to investigate and about 5 weeks for it to be sorted out. It was definately easy to sort out. We are council tax free for this year and we received a cheque. The refund was from 1993.

rememan012

Hi,

Wokingham Borough Council
Original Band - F
New Band -E
Refund £3444
Future Savings per Year - £ 300

Thanks to Martin, I followed the procedure described to submit a case for Council Tax reduction. The case was successful and my property was rebanded from Band F to Band E, backdated to 1 April 1993. ! I was refunded in total £3444.
The Valuations Office in Reading were very helpful indeed and a pleasure to deal with!

My main points were:

All 15 houses in avenue look the same externally as if they are 4 bed detached, mine however is 3 bed detached. Difference not detected on Second Gear Evaluation.

I quoted price I paid prior to 1991 and extrapolated the value to 1991 using Nationwide Calculator - proved it was valued at the top end of Band E not F.

I quoted two other similar properties in the next road, they were both in Band E

I informed the VAO of the improvements made to the property since 1993 ie study and conservatory.

I had the property valued in April 2008 by Estate Agent ( lower end of Band F) but then deducted cost of improvements made since 1991 which still put the property at the top end of Band E using the Nationwide Price Increase Calculator.

My case was accepted without any quibbles. This morning, 2 months after submitting the case for rebanding the cheque arrived !

bryp_2

Council Bradford
Band Before G
Band Now F
Refund £2500

It only took one phone call to get our house rebanded. We moved to this house in 1994 and assumed the banding was correct but on checking other nearby properties a few weeks ago we realised we were in the wrong band.
After about 3 weeks we were told our band had changed from g to f and a refund of £2500 was due to us. This was great although they wanted to pay us half the money and the rest taken off the next council tax bill. We phoned the council tax office and asked if we could recieve all the refund and pay the next bill as usual. They told us to put it in writing and they could see what they could do, a couple of weeks later the full ammount was in our bank account! Great result. Thanks.

ianrowlands

Local Borough Council: Kingston Upon Thames
Council Tax Band Before: F
Council Tax Band After: E
Amount refunded: £2,500
:beer:
Thanks to Money Saving Expert I used the online tools to calculate and then challenge my council tax banding which for some time I had believed was too high.

Within 30minutes I had a provisional in principle agreement from the local listings officer in person on the basis of the information that I was able to provide!

The protracted "battle" with Kingston Borough Council to return the money is a different story as they simply wanted to provide me with 18 months free council tax instead. Clearly with £2500 of my money accrued over the last 7 years in their coffers you can understand why I was keen to point out that my preference was a refund!

I am thrilled with the result not least because I had always assumed that on the basis that we had not challenged our banding within 6 months of moving into the property I assumed there was no longer an opportunity to make a claim.

This is an intersting case as the property is one of dozens that were built in the year 2000 and it is clear that many of the other properties on the development will have been incorrectly banded to apprarently reflect market prices in the 1990s....but the council will not be bringing this to the attention of the residents.

zinzat

Local Borough Council: Walsall
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: £2600
Annual saving going forward: £300 p.a.

Very straightforward - THANKYOU so much Martin. Without your site's assistance I would never have thought of challenging our banding. I had always assumed that all of the similar houses in our road were also band G, like us. I wrote to the Valuation Office first; they say there is no appeal against their decision, so I tried to give a comprehensive report with photos of other band F properties that look larger than my house. They agreed with me after a couple of weeks, and it was the VOA who advised that the date of the change should be when we moved in 12 years ago. Sure enough, Walsall council reported back within a couple of weeks with a credit for all the years of overpayment without any quibbling. Couldn't be simpler.

Riccallpete

Selby District Council
Before Band F
After Band E
Amount refunded to date £1,733.26
Annual saving this year £324.67.

Valuation Officer, York advised me and Selby on !st April 2008 that band reduced as from 1 April 1993.
Today, 30 June after one letter and one email cheque received
(with no explanatory letter) for £1733.26 which is just over half of what I calculated. Have asked Selby to give full breakdown and asked for interest too.

Thanks for your helpful information re claiming.

Keith1956

Sue P

Please see my earlier posts for details on how to claim the interest back. I received £580 on £2700 last year so you should get double that, I think.

Let me know if you need any further help.

Best Regards,

keith1956