VOA Insists My House is in Band C When it Should Be in Band B At Least!

gord323

Hi Folks,

I want to challenge the valuation of my house by the VOA.

The VOA insists on putting my home, a £240k property, in the same council tax band as £500k properties in the locality.

My property is completely different to the properties in band C in my locality. 

The more expensive properties, on the market for between £450k and £550k, are semi-detached with their own front and back gardens, having also the benefit of their own front gate leading to their own front door, and a garage. 

My property, on the other hand, is mid terrace, is directly above a parade of shops, has no front or back garden, access is by a communal series of stone steps which is common to the entire terrace so it has no individual path or driveway. It also has no garage.

The current rateable value for the purposes of council tax valuation is based on the comparative value of all properties based on their values in April 1991. I have copies of the leases of all the properties in my terrace of houses (above the row of shops) and they are all identical to each other and are therefore all of equal value. They have all been erroneously put into Band C.

One of these was bought and sold in April 1991 for £40,000. This actually puts it in band A and not band C!

Since then, all the properties the valuation office has been saying are in the same band as mine have consistently been bought and sold throughout the intervening years since 1991 at around 80% more than my own property.

Yet the valuation office continually asserts that my own property is in the same band as these other properties which are valued at 80% more than my own! 

I cannot get through to the valuation office the sheer absurdity of their argument.

How do I fight this and make the valuation department see this for what it is ... a complete absurdity and a miscarriage of justice?

I'd be interested to hear any feedback. Thanks.

tacpot12

Have you been through the “check” and “challenge” stages. 

Are their five other five properties in your street that are similar to yours?

Have you tried to use evidence of house prices between 1993 and 2005?

Have you reviewed this webpag? Challenge your Council Tax band: Evidence that supports your challenge - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

And did your notice that it says "The VOA will not consider average house price information from websites such as Nationwide House Price Index, Nethouseprices, Rightmove or Zoopla as strong evidence."  Note the use of the word "strong" - this suggests that combined with other evidence, the VOA might accept average house price information. 

I think you might be struggling because you are comparing your property with more expensive houses in the same band. You need to find properties that are the same as yours, but are in a lower band. I would look at adjoining streets if there are any similar properties.

gord323

Thanks for the feedback, tacpot12.

My evidence is based on actual leases of all the properties in my row of terraced houses above the shops on the ground floor, and is not based on websites that the VOA have dismissed as unworthy. So the selling/buying price is on the actual lease in each case (where the price is what people actually paid for the property) and not on the potentially spurious valuations of estate agents, which may well be pipedreams. 

The problem is that the VOA are comparing my property with the more expensive properties a few yards away - and they are putting these more expensive properties in the same band as mine! Surely simple reasoning would suggest that properties which are twice the value of mine should not be in the same band as mine? Apples should be compared with other apples, surely, not with oranges, or indeed any other fruit which is of very different perceived value.

My neighbour's house sold in 1991 for £40,000, which is at the upper end of Band A. Yet I pay council tax for a Band C property. Some mistake, surely?

tacpot12

I don't think the VOA are comparing your property with more expensive properties. It is my view (based on relatively little evidence) that council tax banding is mess; virtually NO properties are correctly rated. The expensive properties should probably be D, E and even G, and yours should probably be a B. But all are currently in Band C. (I live in a house that is Band A, but should be Band C!)

The way that the VOA work is that IF they look at a property, they decide what Council Band it should be in based on what is correct - not on what is incorrect in that street. The only way to argue against them is to find five properties that are in the same post code (i.e. street) that are lower, and then they have to revert the band to the lower band in order to be "fair". What would actually be fair is to re-rate all the similar properties correctly, but I suspect that this would cause more of a stink that penalising one property owner. It is problem caused by the transition from rateable values to Council Tax bands and was entirely foreseeable.   

You didn't say if you had been through the challenge process, so I assume you have. If so, the next stage is Tribunal. Your case strikes me as difficult, and therefore you would probably benefit from indepenent advice from someone who is used to presenting evidence to such tribunals. They will be able to give you a view as to whether you have a realistic chance of success. 

You might want to write to your MP, but they will want to know what your expert says as to why you cannot get a fair hearing at the tribunal.  

gord323

Thanks for your response, @tacpot12 . One thing is sure; they are in a real mess.

Perhaps I'd better cut my losses and quit this approach. 

Although the temptation was overwhelming: a rebate based on my 26 years of habitation would be considerable.

lincroft1710

As you have lived in the house for 26 years you are way, way beyond the time limit for a valid appeal, so there will be no Tribunal hearing. It seems strange that no-one in the terrace has appealed in the 30 yrs since CT started especially as there is evidence of a 1991 sale.


I agree with @tacpot12 you should concentrate on looking for similar properties in the area in a lower band rather than to try to complain about being in the same band as more expensive properties

Exodi

I spent a lot of time speaking to various VOA staff on the phone, so to add my 2¢:

They have no interest in emotional or current house price arguments. For example "My neighbours has a helipad, a swimming pool and tennis courts and is in the same council tax band as my flat" or "The house down the road just sold for 5 squidillion casholas, and it's a lower council tax band than my bedsit?".

They are only interested in comparables within the vicinity. A comparable being a property of a similar type (e.g. detached house/semi-detached town-house/bungalow/etc), of a similar size (e.g. within 10% of the SQM of the house), of a similar age (generally within 10 years) that are nearby.

Within the first 6 months of purchase, you can ask them to perform the review themselves. Past this, the onus is on you to present comparables that are in a different council tax band. This is much easier said than done (given that finding accurate data on the size and/or age of properties can be difficult).

Find some qualifying comparables and put them to the VOA.

For what it's worth, I'm in band E and I bought my house for £290,000 in 2019. Given that my house is relatively new, I've been unable to prove this is incorrect. Generally new houses are in higher council tax bands.

gord323

"They are only interested in comparables within the vicinity. A comparable being a property of a similar type." Yes, that is exactly what I did. The VOA do not seem interested in hearing appeals based on comparisons of similar properties which are in different bands, nor in dissimilar properties in the same band. So that seems to cover all the bases for a reasonable challenge!

When did I mention a swimming pool? My challenge was not "emotional" at all; it was based on sound figures, with a little help from some lease documents.

I am trying to compare like with like, but that doesn't seem to appeal to the kind of reasoning displayed by VOA staff. When something is pointed out to be absurd, backed up with sensible data and legal documents, surely such an argument carries a certain amount of legal force. Er, except when someone at the VOA says it doesn't. The whole system, based on reason and nothing else, seems to be flawed and possibly corrupt.

@Exodi, I save emotion for more appropriate occasions.

Exodi

gord323 said:

"They are only interested in comparables within the vicinity. A comparable being a property of a similar type." Yes, that is exactly what I did. The VOA do not seem interested in hearing appeals based on comparisons of similar properties which are in different bands, nor in dissimilar properties in the same band. So that seems to cover all the bases for a reasonable challenge!

When did I mention a swimming pool? My challenge was not "emotional" at all; it was based on sound figures, with a little help from some lease documents.

I am trying to compare like with like, but that doesn't seem to appeal to the kind of reasoning displayed by VOA staff. When something is pointed out to be absurd, backed up with sensible data and legal documents, surely such an argument carries a certain amount of legal force. Er, except when someone at the VOA says it doesn't. The whole system, based on reason and nothing else, seems to be flawed and possibly corrupt.

@Exodi, I save emotion for more appropriate occasions.

I said "emotional or current house price arguments" and I also said "for example"..."a helipad, a swimming pool and tennis courts". It should have been obvious this is an example and that I'm not suggesting this is the case for your neighbours.

If understanding what qualifies a 'comparable' is not useful to you, it may be to someone else.

I'm not clear on what data you are presenting to qualify comparables, but clearly there is some disagreement between you and the VOA on this.

You mention not being emotional, but I think given the dismissiveness above and accusations of corruption this may not be true.

Nonetheless, I hope you find the answer you are looking for. If you have sales data from 1991, you should have a fairly quickly resolved case.