Reclaiming Council Tax

paulmh

I believe I am in the right place for this discussion, so my upmost apologies if I am in the wrong part of the forum.

I have been attempting to help my parents with their Council Tax. After seeing Martin's piece online we thought it was worth investigating. We followed his advice and first checked out which band they are listed as on the AOV website (they were band C when other houses were . I also tried to check out any sales prices using RightMove and the other sites suggested by Martin. My parents have been at their property since early 1970's and the property websites only had listings going back to 1997 and nothing closer to the year 1991, two years either side, as advertised.

Armed with what little information I had, I contacted AOV on my parents behalf, and they came back with the response below;

Thank you for your email dated 20th December 2018 in respect of the above.

Unfortunately, I was unable to open the link to our website that you sent to us. Please could you send us a print screen or photo of the website for us to see so this doesn't happen again.

Also, you have not provided enough evidence in your letter to me to undertake a review of your band. My records show the list of properties you provided differ in type, size and style to your own. I cannot consider them as comparable evidence.

To be considered similar, the comparable should be:

* The same type e.g. comparing detached house with a detached house or a semi-detached bungalow with a semi-detached bungalow.
• A similar size to your own
• Built at a similar time to your own e.g. not comparing a house built around 1900 with a modern house

Following this, the information I need includes any of the following:

• Evidence of identical or very similar properties within two miles of your own which are in a lower band (this can be extended to ten miles for rural areas)
• Sales evidence in your locality (within two years of the valuation date of 1st April 1991), which suggests your property might be incorrectly banded
• Evidence that an error was made when your property was banded

Reference to average house price indices is not sufficient evidence for me to raise a review. House price indices cover wide geographic areas which have different property types. These indices only show general trends in house prices. A house price index is not an accurate indicator of value for a specific property and is of very little help in arriving at a Council Tax band.

The sales you provided are not close enough to the valuation date of 1 April 1991 to show clear evidence your property is incorrectly banded. I will investigate the band if you are able to provide more compelling evidence to suggest your property has been incorrectly banded.

Has anyone else had these issues and can advise further?

We fully understand that any claim could put the banding up on their neighbours rather than bring theirs down, and possibly be entitled to back payments, but it is a risk they are willing to do.

Nasqueron

Good to know your parents are willing to take the risk of making everyone else pay more tax, I presume they have told their neighbours of this risk?


Is your parents' house identical to the neighbours, same land, same number of bedrooms etc?

lincroft1710

paulmh wrote: »

"My records show the list of properties you provided differ in type, size and style to your own. I cannot consider them as comparable evidence.

To be considered similar, the comparable should be:

* The same type e.g. comparing detached house with a detached house or a semi-detached bungalow with a semi-detached bungalow.
• A similar size to your own
• Built at a similar time to your own e.g. not comparing a house built around 1900 with a modern house

Following this, the information I need includes any of the following:

• Evidence of identical or very similar properties within two miles of your own which are in a lower band (this can be extended to ten miles for rural areas)
• Sales evidence in your locality (within two years of the valuation date of 1st April 1991), which suggests your property might be incorrectly banded
• Evidence that an error was made when your property was banded

The sales you provided are not close enough to the valuation date of 1 April 1991 to show clear evidence your property is incorrectly banded. I will investigate the band if you are able to provide more compelling evidence to suggest your property has been incorrectly banded."


We fully understand that any claim could put the banding up on their neighbours rather than bring theirs down, and possibly be entitled to back payments, but it is a risk they are willing to do.

It looks as if the claim has fallen at the first hurdle, the VOA (not AOV) consider the Band B houses are not comparable. You will have to search for other houses you believe could be comparable to your parents' home and in Band B.

If a CT band is found to be too low the increased band is not backdated, so your parents' neighbours would only have an increased CT payment going forward.

CH_Confused

I had similar problems with them saying that I didn't have comparable properties but I couldn't find any comparable because mine is very new and different. I have been made a band E when my parents are a band C in a similar size house less than a mile away. It seems new builds are much higher council tax bands and also have to pay estate charges so are paying over and above everyone else. Surely there should be a council tax reduction regardless of band if you have to pay an estate charge for grass cutting etc. but that is another issue.


I asked VOA how they recommend that I find similar houses to mine and they have simply refused to respond. So I have given up and live in hope that one of my neighbours with the same type property will be successful.

lincroft1710

CH_Confused wrote: »

Surely there should be a council tax reduction regardless of band if you have to pay an estate charge for grass cutting etc. but that is another issue.

CT is a tax on occupation of property, not a direct payment for council services.

I asked VOA how they recommend that I find similar houses to mine and they have simply refused to respond.

It is not their job to advise you. Try either physically looking around the area or using Google Maps/Streetview

......................

paulmh

Nasqueron wrote: »

Good to know your parents are willing to take the risk of making everyone else pay more tax, I presume they have told their neighbours of this risk?


Is your parents' house identical to the neighbours, same land, same number of bedrooms etc?

There is no where that suggests you have to tell them of your intention to apply + they may have already applied and was successful, but not told my parents.

There houses are the same size in land and bedrooms.

[Deleted User]

paulmh wrote: »

There houses are the same size in land and bedrooms.

Clearly they are not similar enough to satisfy the VOA that a review of your parent's Council Tax Band is justified.
Sorry.

Nasqueron

paulmh wrote: »

There is no where that suggests you have to tell them of your intention to apply + they may have already applied and was successful, but not told my parents.

There houses are the same size in land and bedrooms.

You said in your initial post your parents were aware of the risk that they might end up having all the neighbours on the higher tax band, I was simply asking if your parents had told the neighbours that this might be an outcome and who to send the increased bill to?

cavemanlc

lincroft1710 wrote: »

It looks as if the claim has fallen at the first hurdle, the VOA (not AOV) consider the Band B houses are not comparable. You will have to search for other houses you believe could be comparable to your parents' home and in Band B.

If a CT band is found to be too low the increased band is not backdated, so your parents' neighbours would only have an increased CT payment going forward.

Hi LinCroft - this is really useful - do you have anything I could refer to that proves the increase not being backdated - need to put my parents minds at rest...

lincroft1710

cavemanlc wrote: »

Hi LinCroft - this is really useful - do you have anything I could refer to that proves the increase not being backdated - need to put my parents minds at rest...

Enshrined in CT law, a Statutory Instrument was passed by Parliament setting this out over 10 years ago