Council Tax Band Challenge

burm87

Hi everyone, I'm writing here in the hope of finding some advice about something.

We moved into our flat about 1 year ago in Manchester city centre and we soon realised something was very wrong with the concil tax banding, our flat is a 2 bedroom of 891sqft on floor 6 and it's part of a bigger complex of 3 blocks, everything is new built, finished in the last 3 last years or so. We have been placed in band F and I soon noticed many other flats of the same development which are 888sqft (3 sqft smaller) have been placed in band E. At the same time there are 3 bedroom flats at floor 12 of 1151sqft that have been placed in the same band.

We believe it's crystal clear something is not right so last January we submitted the challenge to the council, providing all the proofs they required and after 3 months we got a reply "Your band is correct". That was it. I don't easily give up so I replied providing details of each flat and underlining the difference in terms of size between flats in a lower band (3 sqft smaller) and flats in our same band (up to 25% bigger than our flat) and the council opened another case. They said in our building everything was done on paper, no actual measurments had ever been taken, so they sent this person out to measure our flat and measure the EFA for our flat. Now, she came we think she didn't do a good job, our living room is of an odd shape and she measured the area as it was a square and she left.

After another couple of months we get the decision letter which could be summarised with "Your band is correct.". Not a single specific to our case example has been provided, nothing that's justifying why they think our band is correct, they didn't provide anything at all. I'm 100% sure they didn't go to measure other flats so I asked them what are the chances that between two 2 bedrooms flats of the same spec (different layout, but ensuite, main bathroom, storage and corridor will be roughly the same size) with only 3sqft difference in terms of total size, the EFA which on the limit between council tax band E and F is exactly in between our flat (band F) and those flats (band E)? We all know chances are very low.

I've also used the NationWide tool to determine the value of our flat in 1991 and it comes out at about £97,000, the woman said the tool is not accurate as it doesn't take into consideration the area of the city. Ok great, let's say the value is underestimated of 24% (the amount you have to increase it in order to push us in band F, which starts at £120,000), if I apply the same increase of other flats in the same development they would be pushed even higher in band G.

The injustice here is crystal clear and even the person who to measure the flat said "I believe your band is wrong but it's not me deciding". We feel powerless here because there's no way to challenge this further, we have been living here for more that 1 year so appealing to the tribunal I think is not option and we feel very frustrated. Does anyone have any advice about what we can do? I can provide more details if needed.

Thanks a lot.

lincroft1710

1. I presume it was the VOA (part of HMRC) you were dealing with rather than council.


2. What date did you move in and on what date did you first challenge the band. If it was within 6 months, then your "challenge" should have been accepted as a formal appeal. 


3. VOA staff are usually well trained in measuring property. It is possible she was "check measuring", checking actual measurements with the measurements shown on the developer's plan.


4. VOA are under no obligation to back up their decision with reasons.


5. EFA measurements do not include corridors or stores and during my time in the VOA did not include bathrooms, en-suites etc, but possibly these could now be included.


6. NW prices are most definitely unreliable.


7. Are there any other flats in the development of the same type and size as yours and if so, what band are they in?

 
As you were probably out of time to make a valid appeal, then there seems to be nothing you can do. The VOA  complaints procedure does not deal with complaints about valuation decisions, although you can complain about almost everything else

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/valuation-office-agency-complaints-procedure/valuation-office-agency-complaints-procedure#:~:text=The easiest way for you,@voa.gov.uk.&text=Please provide the following information,different from your home address)

burm87

lincroft1710 said:

1. I presume it was the VOA (part of HMRC) you were dealing with rather than council.


2. What date did you move in and on what date did you first challenge the band. If it was within 6 months, then your "challenge" should have been accepted as a formal appeal. 


3. VOA staff are usually well trained in measuring property. It is possible she was "check measuring", checking actual measurements with the measurements shown on the developer's plan.


4. VOA are under no obligation to back up their decision with reasons.


5. EFA measurements do not include corridors or stores and during my time in the VOA did not include bathrooms, en-suites etc, but possibly these could now be included.


6. NW prices are most definitely unreliable.


7. Are there any other flats in the development of the same type and size as yours and if so, what band are they in?

 
As you were probably out of time to make a valid appeal, then there seems to be nothing you can do. The VOA  complaints procedure does not deal with complaints about valuation decisions, although you can complain about almost everything else

1. Yes VOA, sorry

2. We moved in May 2022, so more than 6 months ago.

3. Not sure what she was doing, she said she was measuring the size

4. In this case why can you even challenge if they can say "Your band is correct because we say it". Total joke.

5. Yes this was the case, she measured rooms, living room, ensuite and skipped bathroom, corridor and storage

6. Great, so the same % of increase should be applied to all the flats in the development as I mentioned.

7. Flats of exactly the same layout are in the same band. There's flat with a different layout, same nr of bedroom/bathrooms and roughly the same size (3 sqft smaller) which are in a lower band (E). There's also much bigger flats 25% bigger at the top floor which are in our same band (F).

That's what I'm concerned about, basically if there's an injustice and you don't complain within 6 months from the move in date you have to live with it.

lincroft1710

So flats the same size are also in Band F as are those 25% larger. As the top of Band F is over 30% higher than the bottom, then that is quite possible.


Some band challenges are successful, I lowered plenty during my time in the VOA. The 6 month time limit is set down in CT legislation and has been in force since CT started in 1993. That is what Parliament in its wisdom (or otherwise) ordained and the VOA are bound by this.


As the NW figures are inaccurate you can't extrapolate any percentages. 

boats18

Lincroft1710: Interesting view on NW. Would lso regard the Land Registry stats as inaccurate as in my case they were lower than NW

boats18

Should be "you also"

lincroft1710

boats18 said:

Lincroft1710: Interesting view on NW. Would lso regard the Land Registry stats as inaccurate as in my case they were lower than NW

I've never used LR stats so have no experience of them, whereas I have compared NW and Halifax guesstimates with actual sales on many occasions

The problem we found was that both NW and Halifax could only use sales where they were the mortgagees, so each only had a proportion of total sales and their use of large geographical areas e.g The West Country or East Anglia meant that local variations within an area couldn't be identified.