Council tax rebanding

robincullen

My property has just been rebanded from E to D, backdated to April 1993. The refund is a decent amount of money, which would have earned interest in the hundreds of pounds over the period 1993 until now.
The council say they are not responsible for the original banding, so cannot compensate me for the lost interest. They suggest trying the Valuation Office, as they were responsible for the original, and wrong, assessment. As this must be something that happens to everyone who is rebanded downwards, it aught to be automatic, but it seems not. Has anyone got a Valuation Office to cough up ?

lincroft1710

There is no provision in CT legislation for the payment of interest following a rebanding, so councils will not pay as there is no obligation for them to do so. The VOA will only usually pay interest in exceptional circumstances and I've only known it happen on one or two occasions.

robincullen

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I wonder what 'exceptional circumstances' could be. I don't feel like giving up yet, so if anyone else has experience of this I'd be interested to hear of it.

lincroft1710

The one instance that comes to mind would be if there were several identical houses and all but one had their CT bands reduced. Then several years later it comes to light that either negligently or wilfully this house's band wasn't reduced. The occupier would have a good case for claiming interest on the overpayment of CT as he had not been treated fairly.