Council Tax Appeal. How to proceed from here?

lincroft1710

Takedap said:

lincroft1710 said:

The MSE guide is at best little better than either the Halifax or Nationwide guides, neither of which are accurate

Well to be quite honest, following a fiasco regarding my wife's National Insurance & pension status, I have very little faith in the accuracy of any Government record keeping either.   But I'll just have to see what they come back with.

The VOA have details of 99% of all property sales in England and Wales. For many years (including 1991), these details were on forms supplied by either the Stamps Office or the LR which had been completed by the vendors' conveyancers. So if there was any inaccuracy of the information on a form, it was down to the vendor's conveyancer. With access to all this info it was very easy for the VOA to check movement of house prices and compare actual sales from different periods with the estimates of the house price indices. From personal experience (I'm ex VOA)  HPIs tended to undervalue 1991 prices by 10% often more. I think the worst I found was 20% undervaluing.


It always amuses me that the VOA ask CT payers to provide sales evidence (which unless the CT payer was a party to, or knew a party to the sale and has documentary evidence, they cannot obtain as pre 1994 sales information is not in the public domain) when the VOA has this info at its fingertips.


If your home was in good repair when you paid £172K in 2010, then unless the area you live has never properly recovered from the house price fall from 1989 1995 then I agree Band E is too high 

Takedap

lincroft1710 said:

Takedap said:

lincroft1710 said:

The MSE guide is at best little better than either the Halifax or Nationwide guides, neither of which are accurate

Well to be quite honest, following a fiasco regarding my wife's National Insurance & pension status, I have very little faith in the accuracy of any Government record keeping either.   But I'll just have to see what they come back with.

The VOA have details of 99% of all property sales in England and Wales. For many years (including 1991), these details were on forms supplied by either the Stamps Office or the LR which had been completed by the vendors' conveyancers. So if there was any inaccuracy of the information on a form, it was down to the vendor's conveyancer. With access to all this info it was very easy for the VOA to check movement of house prices and compare actual sales from different periods with the estimates of the house price indices. From personal experience (I'm ex VOA)  HPIs tended to undervalue 1991 prices by 10% often more. I think the worst I found was 20% undervaluing.


It always amuses me that the VOA ask CT payers to provide sales evidence (which unless the CT payer was a party to, or knew a party to the sale and has documentary evidence, they cannot obtain as pre 1994 sales information is not in the public domain) when the VOA has this info at its fingertips.


If your home was in good repair when you paid £172K in 2010, then unless the area you live has never properly recovered from the house price fall from 1989 1995 then I agree Band E is too high 

The fact that the VOA are asking me for details & information dating from a time before I even knew that the property existed instills certain emotions in me too.  But I would be hard pressed to ever describe it as being amused.  Particularly when I have pointed to the sale of a property which is only approx 200 metres away in the adjacent postcode but I am told that it is not "compelling evidence".  I chose to use this property as an example because it belonged to friends so I had actually been inside & know that the layout is very similar.  However this was only one out of nearly a dozen in my local area which they aren't interested in.    The knowledge that the initial values were probably "calculated" simply by driving past the properties makes a mockery of the idea that my evidence is not compelling but theirs seems to be beyond challenge.

WRT to condition of the property when I bought it, it was in a good state of repair & I still have the full surveyor's report which was done at the time of purchase. 

If I could possibly draw on your experience, would it be OK to ask a couple of questions?

Firstly, will the VOA or maybe my local council have the details of how the valuation was done?  IE, was it a "second gear drive-by"?  Will they be able to tell me who did it (or at least, who they worked for)?

And secondly, in your experience, is it the usual practice to the VOA to initially dismiss an appeal in the hope that the resident will give up rather than pursuing the claim?

Thanks again for your comments & help so far.

lincroft1710

Takedap said:

lincroft1710 said:

Takedap said:

lincroft1710 said:

The MSE guide is at best little better than either the Halifax or Nationwide guides, neither of which are accurate

Well to be quite honest, following a fiasco regarding my wife's National Insurance & pension status, I have very little faith in the accuracy of any Government record keeping either.   But I'll just have to see what they come back with.

The VOA have details of 99% of all property sales in England and Wales. For many years (including 1991), these details were on forms supplied by either the Stamps Office or the LR which had been completed by the vendors' conveyancers. So if there was any inaccuracy of the information on a form, it was down to the vendor's conveyancer. With access to all this info it was very easy for the VOA to check movement of house prices and compare actual sales from different periods with the estimates of the house price indices. From personal experience (I'm ex VOA)  HPIs tended to undervalue 1991 prices by 10% often more. I think the worst I found was 20% undervaluing.


It always amuses me that the VOA ask CT payers to provide sales evidence (which unless the CT payer was a party to, or knew a party to the sale and has documentary evidence, they cannot obtain as pre 1994 sales information is not in the public domain) when the VOA has this info at its fingertips.


If your home was in good repair when you paid £172K in 2010, then unless the area you live has never properly recovered from the house price fall from 1989 1995 then I agree Band E is too high 

The fact that the VOA are asking me for details & information dating from a time before I even knew that the property existed instills certain emotions in me too.  But I would be hard pressed to ever describe it as being amused.  Particularly when I have pointed to the sale of a property which is only approx 200 metres away in the adjacent postcode but I am told that it is not "compelling evidence".  I chose to use this property as an example because it belonged to friends so I had actually been inside & know that the layout is very similar.  However this was only one out of nearly a dozen in my local area which they aren't interested in.    The knowledge that the initial values were probably "calculated" simply by driving past the properties makes a mockery of the idea that my evidence is not compelling but theirs seems to be beyond challenge.

WRT to condition of the property when I bought it, it was in a good state of repair & I still have the full surveyor's report which was done at the time of purchase. 

If I could possibly draw on your experience, would it be OK to ask a couple of questions?

Firstly, will the VOA or maybe my local council have the details of how the valuation was done?  IE, was it a "second gear drive-by"?  Will they be able to tell me who did it (or at least, who they worked for)?

And secondly, in your experience, is it the usual practice to the VOA to initially dismiss an appeal in the hope that the resident will give up rather than pursuing the claim?

Thanks again for your comments & help so far.

Councils play no part in the banding process. The VOA had a list of dwellings to band, all that the contractors (possibly 90% of the banding exercise was carried out by non VOA employees or temporary staff who were mostly former estate agents) had to do was put the band against the address. The contractors had full details of most of the dwellings as they had VOA records of size, type age etc gathered from the domestic rating days



Even if the details of who carried out the banding for a particular area have been retained (It was over 30 yrs ago!!) the VOA wouldn't release such details. In the office I worked in all the individuals working for the contracting firms had left their employ before 5 yrs had passed, and many of the firms have since disappeared. In any case the VOA as an organisation assumes full responsibility for all bandings, just as an employer assumes responsibility for the actions of their employees in the course of their employment.


When I was in the VOA, requests for band reductions were fully investigated. Now they seem to do just as you suspect and I am so glad I no longer work there