Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

wilko1010

Local Borough Council:Allerdale
Council Tax Band Before:C
Council Tax Band After:B
Amount refunded:Yet to be informed around £1000
Annual saving going forward:£165

I thought we should give this a try as our immediate neighbours where a band below us and we were right on the split value wise for the band. Very pleasant at the valuations office, a short Q and A and was told it may take up to 8 weeks . Three weeks now (no visit) and received a later saying we have been made a B band from a C, delighted with it. Just waiting on hearing from the council with the refund. If it wasnt for this website I would never have thought of this.

nelinuk

Local Borough Council: Waltham Forest
Council Tax Band Before: C
Council Tax Band After: B
Amount refunded: £300
Annual saving going forward: £163 per annum

I can't believe how efficiently this has been dealt with. Valuation Office acknowledge my letter requesting reassessment within a few days. Then within two weeks I had a letter confirming the band change.

A week later and I arrived home last night to my revised council tax bills dating back to purchase date, showing all the credits. I've been told today I should have refund cheques within 10 days.

RESULT!!!!!

rachelll_2

LB Bromley
was band e
now band d
refund promised £1570.00!

saving £300 per year in the future....

THANK YOU SO MUCH MARTIN.
Having read MSE article I looked up the valuations website and was amazed to see that the house next door was in a lower band. One phone call ,one letter and a 2 month wait and I have just had a letter from the valuations office saying I have been rebanded and 10 letters (one per year!!!!) arrived today giving me notice that a refund is on it's way!!!
I am now telling all the neighbours because the really crazy thing is that I live in a row of 12 indentical victorian houses and now 3 are in band d and the rest are in e....

vikkidonovan

Local Borough Council: Torbay
Council Tax Band Before: E
Council Tax Band After: D
Amount refunded: £811

I watched GMTV and decided that as I had tme on my hands I would invesitgate. Using the tools on the website I found out that nextdoor was band D. As we were semi-detached I thought that we had a good chance, and then finding out we were the only house in the road that was band E I thought that increased the chances. I rang the appropriate phone number and when the lady asked why I thought we were in the wrong band she was quite dismissive when I said that I had watched GMTV and that having done a couple of things I thought it should be looked at. I had to say that my neighbour was a different band and that the house was valued at the Band D price in 1991. The lady said that she would look into it and that it would take around 6 weeks. We had a letter yesterday saying we had been re-banded to D. I rang them and asked where the refund would come from. The refund would come from the local council and would take a couple of days. The notice from the council came today notifying us that £811.02 was paid into our account today. My husband and I are very pleased. It is free money rally.:beer:

System

Local Borough Council:St Albans
Council Tax Band Before:E
Council Tax Band After:D
Amount refunded:Yet to be informed
Annual saving going forward:£332

More of my exploits will be in the advice thread. Suffice to say, despite it being obvious that my new build property had been banded too high, it had to go all the way to a tribunal hearing.

jasm1ne

48 houses in our cul de sac 4 band B rest C, thought we didn't stand a chance of a reduction, 3 weeks later rebanded to B refunded £1700 ! can't believe it, Thanks Martin

oscarfelixjake

Local Borough Council: Wirral
Council Tax Band Before:C
Council Tax Band After:B
Amount refunded:£1787 from 1993
Annual saving going forward:~£160



Yay!!!!!!!!!!!:beer:
Big Thanks to Martin and the team :T

elmlea_em

Hi Everyone

Everyone is feeling the pinch so thank you Martin

Looked into my council tax banding used all the links on here very helpful
From what i found my house should have been Band A when this was all set up but we were in Band B.
Queried with the correct department again found number from links on here, this took about 8 weeks to resolve

Got confirmation yesterday were are moving to Band A and geting a refund for £1050.00, and now out monthly payments are down by £30 :j


Any one not sure or thinks its a waste of time try it, we got a £1050 back from 3 phone calls.

Normandy65

Concil tax refund
Milton Keynes
Old Band 'F'
New Band 'E'
Refund £3,300
Annual reduction £315
Thanks for all the info on how to achieve this

Pete_Harman

We built our house in 1999, and began paying Council Tax in December of that year. We were put in Band F, which we thought was unfortunate but what can you do? Well, you can read Martin's page, for a start!

Because our house is unique, we had no comparative properties that we could quote. However, we knew its value when we had built it, as this was a requirement of the mortgage, and using the Nationwide Houseprice calculator we worked out that its 1991 value would have been just over £111,000 - well within Band E limits. We also looked at the local council's ratings list online, and discovered that although there was a fairly smooth distribution of most bands, there were NO BAND Es AT ALL

On 27th May this year, I wrote to the local VOA:

After examining the comparative Council Tax Bands of properties in my road, I believe that my house has been incorrectly placed in Band F. Of the 123 residential properties in my road, I note that there are no Band E properties whatsoever (see graph below), and feel that an error has been made in ‘jumping’ from Band D to Band F in this road.

In addition, my property was valued at £125,000 when completed in December 1999, and according to the Nationwide House Price Calculator this would equate to a 1991 value of £111,419, well within the 1991 Band E limits of £88,001 to £120,000.

I would be grateful if you would investigate this, and consider re-assessing the valuation band of my house.

I enclosed a histogram that I generated from the local ratings list, showing a clear absence of any Band E's.

We got an acknowledgement from the VOA, and about 4 weeks later a phone call from a very nice man to tell us that our appeal had been successful, and we would get a refund back to 1999 - whoopeeee:j.

Summary:
Local Borough Council: Kirklees
Council Tax Band Before: Band F
Council Tax Band After: Band E
Amount refunded:£2,331.47
Annual saving going forward: about £25 a month

Thanks Martin :T