Anyone Contested Their Rate Bill and Succeeded?

Cotta

Hi All,

I've noticed my rate bill constantly creeping up (as I'm sure all are), however the actual bill bears no resemblance to the actual value of my property. I am thinking of contesting these rates, I was wondering if anyone has done likewise and if so what was your experience?

Thanks

BigAl94

Tried and failed even after pointing out that the larger and more valuable property next door was valued lower and paying much less than anyone else in the area, situation remains the same several years later.

qwert_yuiop

Well how does it compare to similar houses on the same street or area? Look up lpsni website to compare. Houses with garages for instance have a slightly higher valuation than those without. The valuation in 2005 is what it's based on, and the value today is probably not a whole lot different. The valuation for rates purposes is only a means of comparing one house against another.

guiriman

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

Look up lpsni website to compare.

Had a look, our new house is £65k more than our old house on there and we paid £75k more than we got for our old house. So either our rateable value is low, we overpaid for the new one or we sold our old one too cheap. I'll go with the first

Tansy_1980

You can contest your valuation (if the property is newly added to the list) with the NI Valuation Tribunal. The Court Service's website publishes tribunal decisions. Not sure if this is any help though, as it sounds as thoughy our property is not a new build or hasn't had a recent evaluation to trigger a request for consideration by the tribunal.

qwert_yuiop

guiriman wrote: »

Had a look, our new house is £65k more than our old house on there and we paid £75k more than we got for our old house. So either our rateable value is low, we overpaid for the new one or we sold our old one too cheap. I'll go with the first

Depends when the deals were. As is well known, we had a pretty spectacular boom and bust a few years ago. These prices are pretty much irrelevant, as it's only a comparison made in 2005. They could just as easily have given each house a certain number of points as a rateable value.

Zola.

When you retire do you still have to pay the rate bill at the full amount?

BatCat

We had our house re-rated a few years ago and then contested the re-rate value. It was an unusual situation, but it did end up knocking £20,000 off the rateable value.
I believe all you have to do is click a link on their website. It did take several months.

Cotta

BatCat wrote: »

We had our house re-rated a few years ago and then contested the re-rate value. It was an unusual situation, but it did end up knocking £20,000 off the rateable value.
I believe all you have to do is click a link on their website. It did take several months.

Which link?

qwert_yuiop

Zola. wrote: »

When you retire do you still have to pay the rate bill at the full amount?

There's a lone pensioner allowance. You get 20% off.

BigAl94

You need to be over 70 https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/lone-pensioner-allowance