We have had a letter saying our council tax band is changing...after living here almost 4 years

Cherrybee33

Hi,
we have received a letter saying our council tax band is changing....it will be going up by 2 bands....we have lived here almost 4 years...can they do this? The guidance i can see online says it can be changed when sold, it had a small extension put on by the previous owner so this surely should have been flagged before we moved in, would we win an appeal?? We're going to appeal it anyway but it has just come from nowhere and we already have had a letter the week after the first one with the amended council tax bill.
With everything going up its just an extra cost we don't need right now.

Thanks in advance
  

macman

Did it have an improvement indicator on it when you purchased it? Your conveyancer should have picked this up if so.

[Deleted User]

Is it possible someone else on the street has just moved in and tried to challenge the banding which put everyone else up when they looked at it?

lincroft1710

A CT band can be increased or reduced at any time. The only exception being that a band cannot be increased on account of improvements carried out by the current owner.


There could be several reasons why it has been increased. Presumably you are in England so rather than speculate, contact the VOA and ask them why you have had a 2 band increase (which is rare but not unknown).

Cherrybee33

macman said:

Did it have an improvement indicator on it when you purchased it? Your conveyancer should have picked this up if so.

Not that we were made aware of

Cherrybee33

Deleted_User said:

Is it possible someone else on the street has just moved in and tried to challenge the banding which put everyone else up when they looked at it?

Its a small village and the last person to move in is almost 2 years ago now, so i don't think so

Cherrybee33

lincroft1710 said:

A CT band can be increased or reduced at any time. The only exception being that a band cannot be increased on account of improvements carried out by the current owner.


There could be several reasons why it has been increased. Presumably you are in England so rather than speculate, contact the VOA and ask them why you have had a 2 band increase (which is rare but not unknown).

We have been in contact with VOA and the lady who my hubby spoke to said there were no notes about our house and so she had no idea why it would have been changed, but she was a member of the admin team and said she will pass it on to the VOA officer so we're still waiting to hear from them, i just thought i'd ask on here incase anyone knew if we'd have a good chance of appealing it. its just totally out of the blue and i thought they could only increase at the time of a sale, but i guess not.