How much was my house worth in 1991??

takoo

Hi darich

Very long shot - if the local library or other archives, eg a college or university, have:

• copies of 1991 auction particulars with results
• back copies of the 1991 Estates Gazette.

You might (?) find the pages of (EG's) Auction Results. They may have 1991 house sales details etc.

BUT...they would no doubt have to be adjusted to fit the criteria of open market value used for council tax. Also unless you recognise any addesses it would be very time consuming to find whether any result fits your property physically.

Not much help

Takoo

cattie

If you want to be successful then you need to be prepared to put in a bit of legwork to gather evidence.

As mentioned by a couple of other posters, the best way to try to establish the price of similar houses in your area in 1991 is by looking through newspaper archives. A couple of hours spent doing this can end up saving you many hundreds of pounds on council tax if you can successfully challenge your banding. So in terms of time spent, it's a very good investment indeed.

pinkshoes

When I queried ours, the woman I spoke to had worked out the council tax based on area of "living space" (not including bathrooms and hallways), although when I pointed out that we were a band higher than our previous flat, despite it being only 1m squared bigger, and only 1 mile away, she seemed baffled, and couldn't tell us any more.

I'm not sure they know how they work the bandings out themselves, but she did tell me that our entire block was based on their approximation of square meters of living space, which they'd calculated from a small low resolution floor plan, which didn't have any actual dimensions on, other than a small scale in the corner, and her ruler...

EdInvestor

dunstonh wrote: »

Although there was no real movement in house prices between 1989-1991 (very slight loss) house prices fell until 1995 and then (depending on area and house type) took until around 2001 to recover back to 1989 prices.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical.htm
Click on data download

The market peaked in Q2/Q3 1989 depending on area.Ptrice then fell until they bottomed out in Q4 1992/Q1 1993.

After that prices started to rise again, albeit gradually.

(The East Anglia figs are Q2 1989 peak, and Q1 1993 trough)

dunstonh

Halifax property index shows a peak 30/6/1989 and drops until 26/2/1993. It slightly increases again before falling again to its lowest point on 31/08/1995. It doesnt break even to that peak in june 89 until jan 98.



Try the website below:
http://www.hbosplc.com/economy/HistoricalDataSpreadsheet.asp

get the historical house price data. It shows that same areas were seeing drops in 1997 whilst some areas were suffering increases.

EdInvestor

Image has disappeared.Nationwide index shows the bottom at the beginning of 93 as I said, but prices then plateaued for a further 3 years (so a Halifax month in the middle of that showing a small fall would not be surprising - but also not significant IMHO.)

It was not until the end of 1996 that prices made a break for it, with consistent month on month rises.But the fall was all at the beginning of the decade and actually much smaller than many people think.

dunstonh

edited post with an image which gives an idea. The last few months look "Potentially" worrying... for some.

darich

cattie wrote: »

If you want to be successful then you need to be prepared to put in a bit of legwork to gather evidence.

As mentioned by a couple of other posters, the best way to try to establish the price of similar houses in your area in 1991 is by looking through newspaper archives. A couple of hours spent doing this can end up saving you many hundreds of pounds on council tax if you can successfully challenge your banding. So in terms of time spent, it's a very good investment indeed.

I agree that it would give me an idea but I've already been in touch with the Registers of Scotland and paid for some info detailing house prices - i wouldn't get that going to the library - i'd only get a guide.
Using ROS i'm getting exact prices that people paid for their houses. I also have the survey value for my house.

I have found out that an identical house to mine less than 250m away sold for 60k in 1996. Given that the upper limit for the D band is 58k i think it's fairly safe to assume that in 1991 the house was within the limits of band D.
Another house that's the same but extended was sold for 68k in 1991 - but it has an additional bedroom and sitting area.
The nationwide house price index puts my house at 51k in 1991 if i work backwards and at 47k if i work forwards from what the previous owners paid in 1987.
I'm still checking the houses in the area and those that are identical, i'll get the price for ROS and use that to strengthen my case.

Where i'm in a good position is that my partner used to work in the council planning dept. she's now in a different dept but still knows all her former colleagues well - i can find out when extensions were built and how that has changed the bandings.

Hopefully i have enough.

I'll post back here once i hear from the appeals panel.

wish me luck!

kitchen_buff

http://www.landregistry.co.uk/propertyprice/interactive/ppr_ualbs.asp
try this website

darich

kitchen_buff wrote: »

http://www.landregistry.co.uk/propertyprice/interactive/ppr_ualbs.asp
try this website

thanks but it looks like england and wales only - I'm in Scotland.