Council Tax Tribunal Hearing Upcoming

megg97100

Hello,

I am preparing evidence for a council tax tribunal in January 2025 have to submit evidence by December 2024.

I moved into my property October 2021 and make a complaint to the council and VOA regarding my council tax bank at the time. 

I have two neighbours next door to me which have exact same size properties same age same number of rooms etc. They are both Band E we are an F

The council originally stated I couldn’t appeal as the previous owner took it to a tribunal in 2007 and lost and they determined ours should be a F and the tone list provided to me showed our property 193 m2 and the neighbours nextdoor were 163 and 172. Directly next door have the exact same extension as ourselves and on satalite view you can see it’s the same size. The only difference was we had a garage when we moved in and that was demolished due to disrepair so I went back to them and applied for material change to the property as I wondered whether the m2 difference could have included the size of the garage.

The VOA reviewed it and said they had no record of the garage although it’s on our land. Registry document and the previous owner stated it was bulit 1980s and basically stated our house is bigger so the decision was not to change the band so I’ve gone down the appeal process and now I’m set for a hearing in January. 

Would anyone have any advice on what evidence I can present. 

I’m looking at getting a surveyor to come and measure my property m2 to see if I can discount the VOA report of it being 192m2 and hopefully I can prove it’s smaller as it should be the same as next door that’s hoping the records they have for next door are correct also! 

My neighbours won’t be willing to allow me to measure there’s as they don’t want their council tax going up. But if I can see satalie images and photographic images from both properties to prove they are the same size this might help prove their records are incorrect. 

Any advice would be appreciated I can’t find much advise online when it goes to a hearing.   

400ixl

Has the neighbours house with the same size extension been sold since that was built? If not, then it will be as if it doesn't exist as they only review banding when the property is sold as I understand it.

So it could be that when the neighbours property is sold it will also be re-evaluated as the same size as yours and move up a tax band.