Council Tax Banding Challenge

mistryv

Hi I wanted to share my experience with the VOA on this forum and wanted to know if anyone had anything similar. I do aologise for poor grammer but had to remove certain details for privacy.

I challenged my council tax banding August 2023 and have all my evidence (60+ properties) rejected/dismissed. The VOA do not follow their own guidelines and when providing their eivdence/justification move the goal posts to accomodate the properties they presented. Their property examples do not look like mine with one actually being a shop front with flats above! I have a semi-detached house.

My last email to the VOA :-

"Why does the guidance for preparing a council band challenge state on your website that information from the local library can be provided as evidence?

Your website (https://valuationoffice.blog.gov.uk/2023/02/03/council-tax-band-challenges/) mentions visiting my local library which does NOT hold actual sales information and only local newspapers containing house prices for sale information which I provided 60+ properties. My wife and I spent 3 days at the local library going through local papers paying for and printing evidence to be presented to you which you rejected and deemed as not acceptable. Why provide guidance on your website to collect evidence which you will not accept?

Again, all the evidence I provided (60+ properties in the my immediate area) which in your view would have sold ABOVE the asking price during 1990-1993. This is something you are not prepared to check/validate against your own evidence i.e. 13 properties you provided (7 of which were nothing like my property).

Secondly, you have NOT responded to the sharing of 3rd party information issue I raised a number of times. For example, you requested me to provide 3rd party information (property sales documentation) but when I requested your source data your policy prevented you from doing so.

The appeal process doesnt allow for my case parameters to allow submission i.e. their criterea:

a)       you’ve been in your property and paying Council Tax for less than 6 months.

b)      your band has changed in the last 6 months.

This again prevents me from being able to move forward in any way as I dont fit into the above conditions. This is unfair.

My neighbour’s property planning permission was approved 14 May 1982. When the current occupants bought the property in 1996 the extension and loft conversion was already built so, clearly your banding information is incorrect. I suggest you review house number 440 council banding (E) to align yourselves to your own guidelines i.e. a banding review is only completed when a property is sold as in this case 1996. How is it that my property in the above point is being banded higher and differently when there was only an extension built when I purchased my own property?

 Your website guidance and email from your colleagues sent on 7/08/2023 mentions the below criteria for evidence. This is something I have followed but now you have decided that you can increase the criteria parameters to suit your decision.

 · Location -

· Similar Size -

· Character/The same type –

· Built at a similar time.

· Similar in kerbside appearance

The above criteria were sent to me from your colleague and should be amended on your website and any communications from your colleagues going forward should incorporate the criteria you have stated in your last email response and not used as an additional tactic to be presented to justify your decision further down the line.

Again, you have not bothered to mention that one of your own examples is a shop front with flats above! This example clearly shows the lack of due diligence on the VOA side trying to justify a semi-detached property and shop front with flats above are similar. How does this follow your own guidelines?

In summary, what I have gleaned from the VOAs' responses is that the VOA provide vague guidelines which can be rejected and superseded with non-documented rules to suit a justification for a council tax banding challenge decision. The VOA does not even follow its own guidelines when providing evidence.

The VOA can give poor service, make errors, give misleading advice, or cause unreasonable delays which can all be dismissed themselves to validate their decision without consequences. I as the individual challenger to the banding is held to account at every stage and required to provide evidence that you are fully aware you can dismiss. Secondly, you provide an Appeal Process that further prevents an individual like me from a fair review.

At the very least I would expect to be treated fairly using the correct guidance, justification and evidence."

The above has been months of emails which ultimately resulted in their decsion to reject my claim.

My property is the only property in a row which is banded higher.

How is this fair?

BoGoF

Suggest you ask for this to be moved to the specific Council Tax Board

MSE_ForumTeam5

Moved to relevant board

lincroft1710

The time limits for making a valid proposal were not decided by the VOA but by Parliament and are laid down in legislation, currently Statutory Instrument 2009 No. 2270 The Council Tax (Alterations of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations. So if you are outside the 6 month time limit there is no right of appeal to the Valuation Tribunal and in such cases the VOA's decision whether to reduce a band or not is more or less final. 

With regard to the neighbour's 1982 extension, at that time the usual practice was for the council to inform the VOA of the extension so that the Rating Assessment could be reviewed. If the VOA were aware of the extension it would have been reflected in the CT band when CT was introduced in 1993. The 1996 sale of the property would not trigger a band review as the extension was carried out pre 1993

You can make an official complaint to the VOA on the way your case has been handled but the band itself will not be looked at. If you look at past threads on this board you will see there have been many occasions when the VOA has reduced CT bands.

You can also ask your MP to ask the VOA to review their decision and methodology relating to your specific case, but there is no guarantee this will achieve a result in your favour.