Can I get advice re council tax here?

tiredtennant · 31 August 2012 at 1:01PM

Can I get advice about Council Tax here? We are desperately struggling to pay council tax and have discovered that it is banded at least 2 higher than it should be from the instructions on this site.
We plan to approach our Landlord about this. What happens if they are not happy for us to appeal the banding?
The short version is that they bought the property and split it in 2. One set of offices and one domestic use house. The circumstances seem to be that the banding has remained for the full size original property and they are paying business rates on the office as well.
How much impact does it have on the neighbours? I notice it states that the council issue your appeal to your neighbours?

dancingfairy · 1 September 2012 at 9:47PM

The only reason your neighbours would object is for example instead of lowering your band, that all your neighbours got their band increased. To be honest this does not sound like it is likely to happen in your case.
I also can't see the landlord having any problems, in fact they may even get some money back themselves. It does of course depend on whether the conversion was done legally although if they are paying business rates it doesn't sound like they are trying to get out of anything. IF there is something dodgy going on and your landlord is not happy for you to appeal then it's up to you whether you wish to appeal and have you band challenged but then you run the risk that if you antagnoise the landlord they may decide to evict you. With regards to paying the council tax have you checked you are getting any exemptions/discounts you are entitled to? Aare you entitled to council tax benefit etc? Can you ask to pay over 10 months instead of 12 etc etc. There are many other things which may help you as well as challenging the banding. I'm not sure how many years the banding reevaluation can go back but you may get a lump sum as well which would no doubt be of great help to you.
Best of Luck
df
Edit: there's a board here which may help you also: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=187

CIS · 2 September 2012 at 9:19PM

One set of offices and one domestic use house. The circumstances seem to be that the banding has remained for the full size original property and they are paying business rates on the office as well.

The initial thought I would have is that they did not have the property valued for business rates purposes and that is why the property band has not been lowered. If the property was split by the Valuation Office they should have re-assessed the band of the remaining residential part of the property.

Have you checked to see if it has been valued ? - http://www.2010.voa.gov.uk/rli/

CAB_Wyre_Forest_representative · 3 September 2012 at 2:38PM

tiredtennant wrote: »

Can I get advice about Council Tax here? We are desperately struggling to pay council tax and have discovered that it is banded at least 2 higher than it should be from the instructions on this site.
We plan to approach our Landlord about this. What happens if they are not happy for us to appeal the banding?
The short version is that they bought the property and split it in 2. One set of offices and one domestic use house. The circumstances seem to be that the banding has remained for the full size original property and they are paying business rates on the office as well.
How much impact does it have on the neighbours? I notice it states that the council issue your appeal to your neighbours?

You can find out more on how to appeal your valuation band at the Direct gov website below
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/YourlocalcouncilandCouncilTax/CouncilTax/DG_10037424
You appear to be the "liable person" for council tax and as such you can make the appeal directly, not involving your landlord except as a courtesy. Hope this helps

Can I get advice re council tax here?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free