Council tax band “spreads”

Tc2711

Hi - first time poster here.

I wondered if anyone has ever tried/successfully challenged the “spread” in England’s council tax bands? 

Reason I ask is “Band G” is stipulated as £160k-320k - you could drive a bus through that spread! 

Naturally, this means that there are “mega mansions” and relatively modest 4 bed homes (like the one I’m in!) up and down the country lumped into the same band and hence paying the same amount of council tax. 

I find it somewhat odd and confusing that the rest of the bands (i.e those up to Band G) have a spread of anywhere between £10-40k from the lower to the upper bound. 

Am genuinely considering some form of class action against the Valuation Office Agency as I don’t believe this to be just or fair. 

Surely the solution is more granular banding as opposed an ostensibly lazy “catch all” group of bands (i.e Band G and H) at the top end? I note that Scotland’s bandings have much tighter spreads, followed buy a “catch-all” Band H above £212k. 

Would love to get your thoughts and opinions on this. For clarity, it’s not the Band allocation I have an issue with - merely the fact that the band itself is so wide and all encompassing that materially different-sized housing gets lumped into the same bucket.

Cheers

lincroft1710

The bands were set by Parliament not the VOA. The Local Government Finance Act 1992 is the enabling legislation. If it were possible to challenge the Band widths, you would in theory end up at the Supreme Court and heaven knows how long that would take.


So unless you have extremely deep pockets, FORGET IT !!


Finally, there is little point in trying to tinker with a system well past its sell-by date. It needs a complete overhaul, (a revaluation) and only Parliament can authorise that.