Council Tax Rebanding appeal years later

shellsbells007

Help please!

About 4 years ago we successfully had our CT rebranded from a D to a C. Although they only rebranded back to April 2011 but we lived there from Novemeber 2007. At the time I spoke to someone and he tried to say that that’s the furtherest they could go back. This was done on the phone and I have no record of exact dates. We left it. 

We have since moved out of the house and gone through paperwork and been looking into this again. 

I was told by the council it looks like the reason it wasn’t back dated all the way was because the parish councils changed and may have been something to do with that. They have said to contact the VOA. The VOA say we should’ve appeared and there’s nothing they can do as the current owners now need to appeal. 

My question is the current owners don’t need to appeal as the house is already a band C and has been since they lived there which is the correct band. And it has been proved that the band was wrong and should be a C so surely we should be refunded for the 4 years from 2007-2011? But no one can give me any more info or tell me who else I can contact or email. This is money we have overpaid so should be due back surely? Has anyone else had this happen or have any idea who else I could try contact?

thank you in advance for any responses!

lincroft1710

It has nothing to do with parish councils.


If the effective date in the Valuation List is dd/04/2011, then if you were refunded the overpaid amount back to that date then that was correct in law. Are sure this is the effective date and not the date the council have refunded you back to, as this is suspiciously around 6 years back from the date you appealed your CT band. Some councils would only erroneously refund 6 years worth of overpayment. So check the effective date on the CT website.


If dd/04/2011 is in fact the effective date, you will need to speak to the VOA and ask them why they used this date. Unless you were the first owner of the house, dd/11/2007 would not be the correct effective date, it would either be 1 April 1993 or the date the house was completed if later.


Please update us when you have an answer one way or another, 

shellsbells007

Thank you for your reply  

yes so the effective date on the valuation list is showing as 1st April 2011. And that is the date we got refunded up to. 

We were the first owners of the house back in November 2007 as it was a newly built house. As this is the case should the effective date in retrospect have been 1993? And would we be entitled to the refund until then or potentially not as like you say sometimes they only go back 6 years? 

It helps having some extra info so I understand it all abit more, thank you, appreciate the help. 

Mr.Generous

We got 11 years refunded. Forget the time frame "too late" stuff. They have a statutory duty to put your house in the right band and charge accordingly. They have already admitted they got it wrong once.

shellsbells007

lincroft1710 said:

It has nothing to do with parish councils.


If the effective date in the Valuation List is dd/04/2011, then if you were refunded the overpaid amount back to that date then that was correct in law. Are sure this is the effective date and not the date the council have refunded you back to, as this is suspiciously around 6 years back from the date you appealed your CT band. Some councils would only erroneously refund 6 years worth of overpayment. So check the effective date on the CT website.


If dd/04/2011 is in fact the effective date, you will need to speak to the VOA and ask them why they used this date. Unless you were the first owner of the house, dd/11/2007 would not be the correct effective date, it would either be 1 April 1993 or the date the house was completed if later.


Please update us when you have an answer one way or another, 

Thank you for your reply  

yes so the effective date on the valuation list is showing as 1st April 2011. And that is the date we got refunded up to. 

We were the first owners of the house back in November 2007 as it was a newly built house. As this is the case should the effective date in retrospect have been 1993? And would we be entitled to the refund until then or potentially not as like you say sometimes they only go back 6 years? 

It helps having some extra info so I understand it all abit more, thank you, appreciate the help. 

shellsbells007

Mr.Generous said:

We got 11 years refunded. Forget the time frame "too late" stuff. They have a statutory duty to put your house in the right band and charge accordingly. They have already admitted they got it wrong once.

That’s interesting to know thank you! Yes that’s my thoughts too. If it’s wrong it’s wrong and should be back dated to however long the bands been wrong for. 

lincroft1710

If it was a new house, the effective date when first banded would have been dd/11/2007. 


Apart from the obvious one, that they used the wrong date, which would be very unusual and should have been corrected when you queried it ,there are a couple of possibilities why a different date was used. Firstly there may have been a physical change in the area on or around 1 April 2011, which the VOA considered would have a sufficiently detrimental effect on the house's value to push it into the lower band and that date would be the correct effective date. Secondly although I dismissed the parish council change, if there had been a district or county council boundary change on 1 April 2011, there is a possibility that if the house was now in Walford rather than the more upmarket Weatherfield and so the house would not be worth as much as the same house in Weatherfield.


I'm ex VOA and spent the last 12 yrs of my career dealing with CT appeals and I cannot think of a single occasion when we got the date wrong. I'm hoping the VOA will either have a good explanation or realise their mistake and change the date. But if they are intransigent, there is little you can do and there is no appeal process open to you and as there is no mileage in this for the current owner it is doubtful they would want to get involved.

lincroft1710

Mr.Generous said:

We got 11 years refunded. Forget the time frame "too late" stuff. They have a statutory duty to put your house in the right band and charge accordingly. They have already admitted they got it wrong once.

Firstly the house is in the correct band, it is the date that may or may not be correct.

Secondly any overpayment has been correctly refunded according to the entry in the Valuation List. 1 April 2011 is the effective date for the reduced band and the council have correctly used this date  when calculating the refund.

Thirdly as the OP is no longer the CT payer he has no rights to get the effective date changed if it is incorrect. 

shellsbells007

An update - Previously when we lived at our prior house we were in the wrong tax band. This was changed from a band D to band C. But the effective date they did it from was only up to a date in 2011 however, we moved into the house in November 2007 (it was a new build, so first owners). I managed to get the effective date changed to that date and we are now getting the rebate/refund. 

If anyone is in the same position an comes across this feel free to comment/message me and I’ll go back to have a look at what I did and who I ended up emailing me that helped me.