Council tax banding

ianb135

I watched your program with the council tax banding and realised I am in wrong band as houses the same or bigger in my road are band E and I am band F. I appealed to the Valuation office as you said. Have lived here for over 30 years without a thought about it till you raised it. They sent me a letter back saying its invalid as has to be within 6 months of becoming tax payer. Can you give me any more advice or help please sir.
Ian Bayne 

lincroft1710

You will have to forget the appeal as it is patently invalid. Instead ask the VOA to investigate the band on the basis that the same and possibly larger houses are in a lower band. The downside could be that your band is correct and the others are in too low a band.

CBJardine

I started my band query back in 2008 after thoughroghly checking all identical houses in my area and sent all the details off to the assessors. I was one month over the 6 months deadline so they rejected my proposal. I have discovered after watching the show recently that I needed to check the value of my house in 1991 and the sale price as near to that date.  My council website currently shows the value of my property in 1991 is in a band B and the sale history shows the sale price in 1995 was £5, 000 less than the starting point for a band C on the Assessors website. I have been on band C since 2008. I sent this new information to the SSA. They called me, which I thought was strange ss all my correspondence was my letter or email. The man's explanation just confused me, he said he was confusing himself. Alarm bells. I asked for it to go to a higher position as he was not convincing me. I received an email to say they are now investigating it? I don't know what to make of it now and hope it is a good outcome.. According to the Nationwide calculator, the value is £7,000 under the band C. Any advice before they get back to me anyone?

p00hsticks

CBJardine said:

Any advice before they get back to me anyone?

A couple of points

1) I know it's difficult for anyone who didn't live through it to comprehend, but overall house prices in the early 1990's fell significantly.  House prices in 1995 were generally considerably lower than those in 1991, so it's perfectly conceivable that something that was £5000 under the Band C starting point in 1995 would have been in Band C in 1991

2) VOA won't accept the Nationwide houseprice indicator as evidence - it's far too non-specific

CBJardine

Thank you everyone for your advice. It has helped me understand the situation better.  Thankfully, I didn't ask them to take  Nationwide houseprice indicator into consideration so at the moment no news is good news.