Council Tax error?

Housebuyer1608

Hi all!

Looking for some advice really.. or if this had happened to anyone before.

We bought our house & moved in about 10 days ago. On the home report it stated the council tax band was B. We then confirmed this with the seller when discussing bills etc.

We have just received a letter from the Council saying the house is Band D and always has been.

When we were viewing houses we budgeted based ob mortgage payment, council tax payments etc and actually chose this house over another because it was quite a bit less in council tax.

We are also have some problems with our lawyers not returning our calls so havent had a chance to ask them but is there anything we can do about this?

Thanks for your time

aneary

You can check online the council tax band why didn't you?

Housebuyer1608

I honestly never thought i would have to re check all the details that were featured on the home report for every house we viewed?

Maybe i was wrong for assuming the details on the home report were correct but this doesnt really help me now so reason for the post was to ask if there was anything we could do?

00ec25

Housebuyer1608 wrote: »

to ask if there was anything we could do?

as you are in Scotland check here:
https://www.saa.gov.uk
that the band is as the council says and whether it has been revalued as a result of the sale because it previously had an "improvement flag" against it (if Scotland uses that system)

then either try to appeal (Scotland, being Scotland, call it a "proposal" rather than an appeal)
https://www.saa.gov.uk/council-tax/council-tax-proposals/

or you can "go for" the person responsible for the content of the report:
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/BuyingSelling/Home-Report/buyers/advice
"THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF BUYERS
The Home Report legislation gives buyers a statutory right to damages if the Single Survey report is prepared in a way which is negligent or biased. The surveyor therefore has a legal liability to both the seller who instructed it and the buyer, and will write the survey report with both parties in mind. Surveyors are bound by complaint and redress systems including the independent Surveyor Ombudsman Scheme."

you will notice that the above does not refer to the property questionnaire - which is the place where the CT banding is listed...
"A Property Questionnaire that contains further information about the house such as alterations that have been made, factoring costs and council tax banding."

so overall the Scottish position is no different to the English one. You will need to prove that the questionnaire was intentionally/knowingly filled out incorrectly/negligently.

it took me 2 minutes to find the above using google, have a look around yourself?

Lulu0110

I would think that the people who made the report are responsible for any mistakes, although no one ever seems to take responsibility for anything these days. Contact them for their view.

Pixie5740

Check with SAA first.

Did the previous owners extend the property? If so it might have been a band B when they owned which then became a D when it was sold.

Housebuyer1608

Thanks for your replies!

ReadingTim

What are you hoping to achieve? Assuming it's banded correctly, the Council won't change the banding just because the vendor was dishonest or mistaken, so that possibility is a non-starter. Next, the author of the home report could be liable if they failed to check or otherwise got it wrong, but what's the limit of their liability?

Furthermore, what loss have you suffered? You haven't suffered anything in respect of the property value, and I'm not sure what the position is with regard to consequential loss, ie the higher council tax bills going forward. Finally, as no-one knows how long you're going to live there, any such loss cannot be quantified.

So, other an omission of the error, apology and perhaps a refund of the home report price and maybe a couple of hundred quid, what do you think can be done?

Housebuyer1608

Thanks for your responses.

When we were viewing houses one of the deciding factors was how much monthly bills would be.

So we ended up choosing this house over another because the yearly bills worked out alot less for similar house because of the council tax bandings, But obviously this is not the case now.

Never being in this situation, or knowing anyone who has i didnt know what the next step was or what kind of outcome there would be, hence starting this thread.

seashore22

You say you rejected similar houses because they were in a higher band than this one, but that should have alerted you to an issue. Similar properties have similar council tax bands, so it made no sense for this one to be different by 2 tax bands.

Housebuyer1608

We looked at a range of houses in different areas they all were different council tax bands some were b, c, d & e. All 3 bedroom houses.

So no we werent alerted to have to research into the honestly of each home report for all the homes viewed.

Sometimes on this forum you ask for help/advice & you get alot of negative responses which makes you wish you had never asked in the first place.