Council Tax Banding Challenge - Are rules changing for submitting evidence?

mistryv

Hi 

I was hoping someone would be able to advise with our ongoing council tax band challenge case we have currently going on.

In summary, what we have experienced so far, I appreciate some of the point are already known: -

1. They have restricted access to property sales price information i.e. they requested sale property information from 1991 but the government website only goes as far back as 1995. They wont provide us any links or justification to where they got their banding decision from.

2. They are now requesting actual solicitor papers from actual sales completed of properties from around the 1991 we provided as evidence.

3. They will not accept data from Nationwide House Price Index, Nethouseprices, Rightmove or Zoopla.

4. We have sent them  over  50 properties (information gathered from local library newspaper archives) all similar to my own property in terms of area, style, built at similar time etc. spanning 1990 -1992 as an indicator that there are multiple properties that would place my property in a lower council tax band according to their guidelines. All the properties we sent were 'open market' and from all the top agents around that time (1991).

5. Each of their emails have contradicting statements (within the same emails!) as to what they will or wont accept as evidence for our case. 

They definately are trying to make it as difficul as possible!

thanks in adavance.

lincroft1710

The points you make (apart from the contradictions) have been the norm for some years. I would suggest you look for similar size and type properties in the neighbourhood in lower CT bands and quote those.From threads on these boards it seems to be pot luck if you get a result.


On the "success stories" thread some posters say how painless the process was for them!


As an absolute last resort and with absolutely no guarantee of success you could ask your MP to intervene, saying that you believe the VOA are fobbing you off