Council Tax Rebanding bill for house we sold last year

BobsySpud

Hi there,

Apologies if this isn't the right board for this.......

We sold our house in Scotland last November and have just received a bill from the council due to them doing a rebanding exercise in the area. They have revalued properties as at Nov 2004 and our old house apparently has gone from group C to D. So, as we were the owners at that time, we've been billed the difference for the two years we owned it!

The bill is for £270 and certainly won't be easy for us to come up with the cash! Does anyone have any advise or knowledge on this? Can the council backdate their bills like this? We bought the house on the understanding that it was group C, we never asked for house to be revalued - this bill has just come out of the blue!

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

Bobbie

AMILLIONDOLLARS

I'm gobsmacked!!!:eek:, didn't know they can do this, will be very interested in the replies you get. Citizens Advice should be your need port of call

AMD

subjecttocontract

This is Scotland where there are different rules for lots of things.

Scots pay less for university fees, medical prescriptions and many other things.......all funded from the UK taxpayer so its difficult to have very much sympathy.

brummybloke

sounds a right stitch up, most likely a huge over spend by the council and now desperately trying to recover money however they can.

as mentioned, i would obtain some legal advise on this one, but back dating an already determined and paid bill with a new amount sounds a little bit iffy.

poppyolivia

I honestly didn't think they could do that!...We moved to a new property and 2 years later they put the council tax up and back dated it from when we moved in and had until the end of the month to pay it, I thought that was bad enough. We even asked in the council tax office when we bought the place if it will go up and they said there was no way it would go up!! We asked to pay it up but if we did then we would not get the benefit of paying in 10 month instalments...the year after they automatically put it up to 12 months without us asking. Like Amilliondollars said, get in touch with CAB.
I was always led to believe the tax only went up when you sold to someone else then its their debt from whenever they moved in.

JF77

subjecttocontract wrote: »

This is Scotland where there are different rules for lots of things.

Scots pay less for university fees, medical prescriptions and many other things.......all funded from the UK taxpayer so its difficult to have very much sympathy.

God I thanked you by accident bloody Rose Wine!!!

They never asked for sympathy! they asked for advice so there is no need to be anti scottish.:mad:

lil_me

Wow, I didn't think they could do that. I think I would be taking advice ASAP, maybe contact anyone you know still in the area and ask if they've had the same shock?

CIS

The banding is legal from the date on which the Valuations Office decide a banding to begin. If this re-banding leads to a change in the council tax due then the council are legally allowed to recover the money at their discretion.

The LGFA 1992 allows the VO to retrospectively amend bandings. The same act sets what the council will charge in Council Tax based on the banding set by the VO.

poppyolivia

JF77 wrote: »

God I thanked you by accident bloody Rose Wine!!!

They never asked for sympathy! they asked for advice so there is no need to be anti scottish.:mad:

:rotfl: :rotfl: Made me chuckle, but totally agree with your bottom statement!

Rose Wine rocks by the way!!:rotfl:

Cheers!!

BobsySpud

Thanks everyone for your replies.

We're definitely going to seek some further advice on this! I actually used to work for the council (still on maternity leave in fact!) so have kept in contact with a few of the people I worked with. I will ask them next week if they've heard of this happening to anyone else in the area.

Have also sent an email to the local CAB up there, as they may have come across this particular issue with other local residents. And will make appointment next week to see our local CAB down here.

Have a horrible feeling that we'll end up having to pay the bill though

We originally moved to Scotland in Nov 2004 and this is the date at which the rebanding has begun. So I guess they've taken the revised valuation from the price we paid for it? If this is the case, surely they should have told us at the time?

Will let you know what the outcome is.

Thanks again

Bobbie

irnbru_2

BobsySpud wrote: »

So I guess they've taken the revised valuation from the price we paid for it?

No, the bandings are set at 1991 prices IIRC.

It may be that someone has sought to have a council tax refund and in doing so that has caused the re-survey e.g. someone in a D has complained that their neighbours are C-banded and that they should be the same. The VO may find that the complainat's band is correct and the neighbours are wrong and thus would be uprated.