Challenging your Council Tax Band - Lothian, Scotland - Tips - Help - Discussion

GlennCTax

One Example of the Lothian "Assessor" Attempting to Cover-Up Misleading Court Evidence!!!

POINT 1 - We wrote to the "Assessor" to inform him that a Council Tax, Senior Technician was using misleading Court Evidence by using a Detached property as a Semi-Detached property in his Court Productions.  This Technician has 40 years experience.

The Assessor replied stating:

That the property  - "became a detached property some time after late 2000"

a) - We obtained Evidence from the Planning Department to show his statement was misleading.
b) - We obtained Evidence in the form of a FOI reply from East Lothian Council which show his statement to be misleading.
c) - We obtained Evidence from the Court Minutes which shows he was using a misleading statement.

Our Evidence shows it would have been very clear to the Assessor, that his reply was misleading!!  This is only a sample of this Assessors behaviour.


POINT 2 - If this Assessor is willing to use misleading Evidence in his Court Productions, what confidence can the public have in any of their Assessments.

This is a public funded body in charge of setting Council Tax Bandings for over 400,000 properties in Lothian!!!


POINT 3 - Our 3 year investigation into the Lothian Assessor has uncovered 9 Lothian assessors all using misleading Evidence!!!

This is the same organisation that has been quoting the Law to members of the public in Court for the last 30 years.

This is the same organisation that threatened the public with "fines or imprisonment" if they use misleading information!!


POINT 4 - To date our Evidence has grown to 130 items of Evidence including 5 Taped Recordings.  We are still investigating a number of areas at this moment in time.  We ask no one to take our word, our Evidence speaks for itself.

If these Assessors are willing to use so much misleading Evidence when we challenged our Council Tax Band, what sort of Evidence do they use for the 1000's of members of the public who do not challenge their Band!! Our Evidence shows we are not alone!!


Do you live in Lothian?  Have you challenged your Council Tax Band?  Did you see the Assessors Evidence?

We may be able to help you, our Evidence goes back 30 years!!!

We will give further updates in the coming weeks and months

Had a similar experience?  Please feel free to comment.

GlennCTax

18 Councillors and not one Reply

POINT 1 - My wife and I wrote to 18 Councillors to inform them that the Lothian Valuation Joint Board was using misleading Evidence

We informed them that:

a) - "Long serving Senior assessing staff members do not require training to inform them that using misleading evidence in their Witness Statements and Court Productions is illegal."

b) - "Our extensive investigation into this organisation has uncovered the use of misleading Evidence and cover-up by 5 Senior assessing staff members from the top management in the LVJB, including an “Assessor” and a Depute Assessor who is also the Complaints Officer."

c) -"Mr ******* gives his Progress Reports to this Committee, therefore, we believe the Committee members have a vested interest in receiving input from an Appellant of the LVJB.  Our email attachment will give you some understanding of how the LVJB conduct themselves whilst dealing with members of the public."

d) - We informed them that "Our allegations were backed up with documented and tape recorded evidence."

POINT 2 - From the above it is clear that we made some very serious allegations against these Assessors

a) - We stated - "With your experience in dealing with the LVJB, we would appreciate your views in relation to the attachments we have supplied. Any comments you may wish to make would be welcome."  - Not one Councillor replied to this request

b) - We also stated - "It would be helpful if you could confirm safe receipt of this email."  - Again, not one Councillor sent a reply to confirmed safe receipt of their email.

This is just another example of what the public are up against when they attempt to hold these Assessors to account. for their actions.

These are the same Assessors that threatened the public with imprisonment or fines if they use False information !!!! (On their webpage)

Yet here we are making these very serious allegations against the very top Management of the LVJB, and yet deafening silence from all 18 Councillors!!

We shall give further updates in the coming weeks and months.  Had a similar experience?  Please feel free to comment.

lincroft1710

GlennCTax said:

18 Councillors and not one Reply

POINT 1 - My wife and I wrote to 18 Councillors to inform them that the Lothian Valuation Joint Board was using misleading Evidence

a) - We stated - "With your experience in dealing with the LVJB, we would appreciate your views in relation to the attachments we have supplied. Any comments you may wish to make would be welcome."  - Not one Councillor replied to this request

.

Do Scottish councillors have any dealings with the Assessor? English councillors have virtually no dealings with the VOA except on the very rare occasion when they try to help (usually unsuccessfully) CT payers with CT band queries.

GlennCTax

Hi Lincroft, thanks for the reply.   It looks like it is different here in Lothian than in England.  We see from the Lothian Valuation Joint Board Minutes, that the Assessors give a Progress Report to these Councillors every few months. It was 4 of these Councillors on the Panel that Appointed the most recent Assessor.

Before writing to these Councillors, we checked each of them had attended a recent Board Meeting.  It was disappointing that we did not receive a reply from the Councillors.  Who said Campaigning was easy!

We see the public are still keeping you busy!!   Keep up the good work - Cheers

lincroft1710

I may be wide of the mark, but it seems to me that if the councillors appointed an Assessor whom you consider is not performing their tasks in an appropriate manner, then said councillors may regard this as an unstated criticism of their judgement in appointing them. Hence their reluctance to engage in dialogue. I don't know to which political parties the councillors are affiliated (I am guessing most are SNP) but there is usually one independent or minority party member who is prepared to stick their head above the parapet

GlennCTax

Hi Lincroft, you are not far off the mark in what you are saying.   We were going to do a follow up Post on this issue.

a) - At the time we wrote to the Councillors, we were aware that the Assessors were reporting their Progress Reports to them, but we were not aware the Councillors actually appointed the "Assessor". 

There was no criticism of the Councillors at that time, we were highlighting the serious issues our investigation had uncovered.  The Barclay Report of 2017 (Rates), had just warned the Assessors that they need to change their behaviour!  These Assessors were reporting their progress including the implementation of the Barclay Report to these Councillors.  We believed these Councillors are entitled hear input from users of the system.  We have experienced first hand how these Assessors operate. 

While these Assessors were threatening the public with Fines or Imprisonment on their website, they have been caught submitting Misleading Evidence into a "Court of Law".   At the time we had uncovered Evidence of 5 Assessors all using Misleading Evidence.  We did not expect anyone to take our word, that was why we informed them that our extensive investigation included Documented and Taped Evidence.  This again is only a sample of our Evidence.

b) - We found one of your points interesting, eg

" there is usually one independent or minority party member who is prepared to stick their head above the parapet"  

I tried this logic with a Post I put out in relation to the Valuation Appeal Committee.  We saw some good work carried out by some of the Committee members, however, we also saw some work that was, lets say, well below par.  We wrote a Post asking if any of these Committee Members would like to "Blow the Whistle".  Like you, we thought there may be one or two who were prepared to stick their head above the parapet.  So far no success.

c) - We did not see this as a political issue, although I get the point you were making.  We simply believed as Councillors sitting on this Board, these Councillors had a duty to at least respond to our serious allegations.  It does not look good that we received no response!!!  

PS, I won't need to Post a follow up on this issue, as I have covered most of it here!  - Cheers

GlennCTax

Assessors Accuse us of not putting a Case Forward on Paper - Not True 

POINT 1 - We had purchased a printer and were in the process of printing the paperwork for our Appeal up until 2 days before our Case.  This is when the Technician dealing with our Case sent us an email informing us he had added an extra 40% of Comparison properties to his Case!!

We knew it was not possible to check out his new Comparisons and add them to our Case within 2 days.  We contacted the Technician, telling him we would need to postpone our Hearing of Appeal date.

POINT 2 - When the Senior Technician came to our 2nd House Meeting, we showed him the Documented Case we had prepared.  He thought our Case was so strong, he stated that he may not take our Case to Appeal.   He said he would review our Case and would be back in touch with us.

The Assessor then ignored us for approximately 3 months.  When we emailed to ask for an update, he simply stated he would be retiring and another Assessor would be taking over our Case.  He made absolutely no mention of his review.

POINT 3 - When we fully investigated this Technicians Case, we could see he Falsified every area of his Assessment.  He also Falsified the Evidence he added 2 days before our Hearing.  If we had not postponed our Case, we nor the Court would have been aware of the Falsified Evidence this Technician was submitting into a "Court of Law" in a bid to increase our Council Tax Band!!!

POINT 4 - This Senior Technician has 40 years experience, yet he Falsified his statement by claiming he had looked and could find no local Comparisons therefore, he had to look further afield to find other Comparisons. 

Again this is not true.  We spent £1000 buying Register of Sasine's property details that showed there were indeed local Comparisons.  In fact we looked and we found 20.  

The local Comparisons did not favour his Case so he ignored them, then looked further afield to find Comparisons that favoured his Case.  Not only did he look further afield for those Comparisons, he also Falsified the details of these Comparisons too!!!

POINT 5 - We can state all of the above with confidence and we have the Evidence to prove it.  This Senior Technician Falsified:

- Falsified his Court Productions       

- Falsified the size of our Attic

- Falsified the size of our Ground Floor

- Falsified his Comparisons in our street

- Falsified his Comparisons outside our local area
- Falsified his statement that there was no local Comparisons

- Falsely claimed he would send us Evidence which did not exist

- Falsely claimed the Section Plan of our attic did not exist - we found it in the Planning Department!!

- Falsified his statements repeatedly in a bid Cover-up, etc, etc

If you challenged your Council Tax Band and failed, we may be able to help you. 
Our Evidence goes back to 1989 up to the present date.

Please feel free to comment.  We will give further comments in the coming days and weeks.

GlennCTax

The Lothian Assessors Threaten the Public with Imprisonment if they use Misleading Information

POINT 1 - The Lothian Valuation Joint Boards own webpage threatened the public as shown below:

“If you knowingly supply false information you could liable on summary conviction to imprisonment“

We have repeatedly caught the Lothians Assessors using misleading Evidence in their “Court” Productions

No one is above the Law!!!!

POINT 2 - "The City of Edinburgh Council" is calling for members of the Public to "Report a Fraud"
They give their definition of Fraud as shown below:

"Fraud is a crime and we need your help to find the people who are cheating the system. ..."

POINT 3 - We found people who are cheating the system - The Lothian Assessors!!!

We reported this to 18 Councillors.  We stated:

- " using misleading evidence in their Witness Statements and Court Productions "

- "Our extensive investigation into this organisation has uncovered misleading information and cover-up
   by 5 Senior assessing staff members from the top management in the LVJB, including an “Assessor” and
   a Depute Assessor who is also the Complaints Officer."
 
- "Our allegations were backed up with documented and tape recorded evidence."

Out of the 18 Councillors we wrote to - we received zero replies!!!!


This is what members of the public are up against when challenging their Council Tax Band in Lothian.

If you challenged your Council Tax Band and failed, we may be able to help you. 

Our Evidence goes back to 1989 up to the present date.

Please feel free to comment.  We will give further comments in the coming days and weeks.

GlennCTax

Another example of Lothian Assessors Behaviour

POINT 1 - My wife and I met up with another Appellant in Edinburgh on Monday.  Her documented Evidence shows she was also given misleading Evidence.  Her Valuer claimed the size of a property was confidential!!!

- The size of a property was not confidential when we received a whole list of properties with sizes to the last 100th of a metre!

- The size of a property was not confidential when we sat in a public Council Tax Court and heard them discuss all property sizes!
- The size of a property was not confidential when assessors sent detailed sizes to another Appellant showing sizes again to 100th of a metre!

- The size of a property was not confidential when assessors uploaded previous Council Tax Court Cases for all the world to see!

- The size of a property was not confidential when we received this Valuers Court Productions!!!

This is only one example of this Valuers behaviour - This Appellant said she was put under great stress by this Valuer!

POINT 2 - After our meeting on Monday, we both saw each others Evidence that backed up both our Cases of Misleading Evidence by these Valuers!

We are expanding our Campaign to hold these Assessors to account and bring about a Fair and Balanced Assessing System.

Please feel free to comment.  We shall continue to give updates in the coming days and weeks.

GlennCTax

More Misleading Evidence from the Valuer

POINT 1 - New Evidence received has shown this Valuer has further misleading Evidence.  We are still working our way through this new Evidence and awaiting further Evidence.

POINT 2 - Our Documented Evidence also shows this Valuer suppressed a Tone Date property and showed a totally irrelevant modern sales price.   The Court Minutes show the Assessors have asked the Court to dismiss any recent sales used by the Appellant where there is Tone Date Evidence available!

In Court Minute 101 the assessor stated - he is not able to consider recent sales prices, however unfair that may appear to be.

In Court Minute 104 the assessor stated - in relation to the comparisons referred to by the Appellant in respect of more recent sales stated that he did not consider these relevant and that the assessor was restricted to 1991 values and while interesting the later sales are not relevant. 

 In Court Minute 104, the assessor - repeated that recent sales prices were not relevant and the information from sales at about the time of the tone date could not be ignored.

Our Evidence shows this Valuer ignored this Tone Date sale then showed a more recent sale which was more than 4 times more expensive than the Tone Date sale!

POINT 3 - This is not the only example we have of this Valuer suppressing a Tone Date value and showing a more expensive recent sale!  Unfortunately, this is another area the public must be aware of when challenging their Council Tax Band.

Our Campaign is expanding to other areas, however, we will continue to give updates on this site.

If you have challenged your Council Tax Band, please feel free to comment.  Our extensive file of Evidence may help you.