Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

Local council -Teignbridge.
Band before. E
Band after. D
Refund £5100
Saving pa. £400


Over the moon here. I challenged our band a few years ago after discovering that a neighbour in a much bigger house was paying less then us, but that challenge was turned down by the council and I was told I could not appeal the decision, so I forgot about it. Then just before Christmas I was browsing the MSE site and read some of the anecdotes here, and then spotted that you could appeal! So I got in touch with the valuation office who were brilliant and very helpful, they instructed me to find 5 similar houses in my area (countryside area) that were in a lower band and call back with the details. So a combination of local knowledge, people I know in similar houses and google maps and cross referencing house bands on the internet , I had my 5 examples within 1 hour. I called the valuation office back who went through them and then said they weren't exact matches so couldn't do anything, but that I could find other examples if I wished to see if they worked. (age of property, style, bedrooms etc have to match). So I was about to search for more examples when the VO rang back and said actually, they had found a match in my examples and to leave it with them, and that they may have to visit.


3 weeks later, with no visit and the local council rang me today to say we are re-banded, £5100 is going to be repaid and our yearly bill will go down by approx £400.


Thank you MSE once again. x

jonsc193 said:

Thank you for all your help here MSE! I realised our bungalow was likely in the wrong council tax band late last year, quite by chance. I went on the VOA website, and discovered we were in band D, whilst 90% of our neighbours were in band C,(especially important were the bungalows the same as ours).
I rang them up to register a reband, and the young chap required me to cite comparable properties to mine, of which there are several on my street. He said he would be in touch within 3 months. I got correspondence from them on Saturday confirming my success! Rebanded now to a band C. I Will be in touch with them regarding their reimbursements of my four years of overpayments! Thanks again for your help!!

The evidence for the need for a general revaluation mounts. And only 30 years too late.

To clarify though, the reimbursement will come from your council, not the VOA. But bear in mind that right now, for obvious reasons, the wheels of bureaucracy might be turning even slower than usual.