Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

KathB

Thank you Martin, my husband and I live in Chorley and we followed your advise and the clear instructions on your site. Its only been about 5 weeks and last week we received a letter telling us our council tax had been re-banded and we were in line for a refund. Having not heard anything from our own council my husband contacted them today to be told a payment would go into our bank next tuesday but they had already taken the remaining payments for this year from the amounts owed to us even though we have paid since day 1 by direct debit..... After we'd discussed it we and visited this site, we've again decided to 'push the bounderies' and we're going for the interest too.... so another call will be made tomorrow.....Fingers crossed!

KathB

lincroft1710

Kath - councils do not give interest on refunds of overpayment of council tax. There is no provision in CT law for this.

bigmoney

East Staffordshire Council
Council Tax Band Before E
Council Tax After D
Amount refunded £1,919.30p

After looking at the council tax banding website I found that we had been in the wrong band for 9years. Got in touch with council they gave me a phone number to ring gave them my details, they said they would look into for me six weeks later a letter saying I would be put down a band and a refund would be sent from the council which they have done.

barbiecat

Braintree District Council
Previous Band: D
New Band: C effective from April 1993
Amount Refunded: £1,009.13

Earlier this year my brother and I inherited our elderly aunt's 2 bedroom bungalow and when going through her papers saw that the property was a band D. I thought this seemed high so I decided to do the Council Tax test suggested by Martin. It transpired that the bungalow should be a band C. I telephoned the local valuation office in Colchester, and soon heard from them that the banding was to be reduced and that I would be receiving notification from the District Council. Within a couple of weeks a cheque was sent to the solicitors dealing with our Aunt's estate. Has anyone else applied for a refund on a deceased's estate? It's just a shame that my aunt had to pay over the odds for all those years!!!!
THANKS MARTIN

pampam

Local Borough Council: calderdale
Council Tax Band Before: band c
Council Tax Band After: band b
Amount refunded: £579

Slow but quite easy process.

Many thanks to our dear Martin once again.

Cheers
Pam x

hamstercheeks_2

can someone tell me how long this is supposed to take? i contacted the assessors dept in July and I received a call and a letter but nothing else

lincroft1710

hamstercheeks - as you use the word "assessors" I presume you are in Scotland. If they are as busy as the Valuation Office Agency which deals with Council Tax bands in England and Wales, then several months wait would not be unusual. No harm in contacting them to find out what is happening.

JanNyk

Wakefield mbc
original band c
new band b
refund £826
annual change £180

Thank you so much for your advice on getting the Council Tax band for our house changed. After following your step by step instructions we got a refund of £826! I told my next door neighbour about it and they got theirs changed too. Excellent result!:j

It was because our other neighbour's houses are detached, while we are the only semi-detached in our close. While checking I noticed that the same seemed to apply to other roads in our area,which were all built at the same time and all must have been put into the one tax band by our local council.
So it proves that everyone should check!

Thanks again!!!

marionquine

Like Hotlips, we've been told we will not get a refund as it's over 6 months since we moved in (Aberdeenshire, Scotland) but they are going to check the banding of our property:-(

messyhead

I posted in the discussion area several months ago about my experiences in trying to have my property re-banded. I didn't have much success so I didn't go through with my appeal.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=12544789&postcount=2524

However, I received a phone call this morning from the assessor advising that someone else on my estate had appealed, and as our property was marginal when it came to the band, they've decided to re-band our property!

It's a good result, however I'm slightly annoyed that they wouldn't re-band us anyway, or at least make out that we would not have been successful.