Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

lincroft1710 · 14 September 2017 at 2:11PM

Previous occupiers are entitled to refund of any overpaid Council Tax

mjj1974 · 18 October 2017 at 9:40AM

Ipswich Borough Council
Rebanding from band C to band B
Total refund £2,700
They refunded £2,300 into our account and have taken the rest off our bill for this year so we won't pay anymore council tax until April 2018.
Better off each month too.

Fairly simple to do. First contacted VOA to tell them that all our neighbours were band B and we were only ones Band C. They asked for more evidence so sent photos that showed all properties same type and age (row of 1930's semi detached). In fact some of our neighbours have a garage and own drive where as we have a shared drive so I made them aware of this as I felt we should be a lower band. They wanted houses prices from the time of banding but as most people in this road rarely move house that was difficult to find. As it happens when we moved in in 1999 a year later our neighbour sold we did have those two prices which were similar. I also made the point that we had an extension but so did most of the other properties in the area so I couldn't see how that effected the banding. It has taken them about 3 months to come back to us but they accepted the challenge and paid us direct into our bank account £2,300 backdated pay as we have lived here 18 years. I was worried that they may just change our neighbours band to a C but thankfully they didn't.
Thanks for making the process easy to understand. Great sum of money when I have been out of work for a few months and we have kids at Uni.:j

GCRH · 2 December 2017 at 8:50PM

Council: Cheshire
Band Start: E
Band End: D
Amount Refunded £3000+

I battled with the VSO for a Council Tax rebrand on the grounds that I thought the one I was in was too high. I even went to a tribunal where the representative from the VSO continually stated that my claim was out of ‘time’, so I lost. I moved from that property a couple of years later and discussed this situation with the new owner, having advised him that he was in a good position to apply for a rebrand, as a new owner has that right.

I heard nothing for a couple of years when, quite unexpectedly, I received a letter from Cheshire County Council who, after agreeing a rebrand with the new owner, sent me a cheque for over £3000 in compensation for the overpayments that I had made.

Not to be outdone I immediately applied for interest on those ‘illegal’ payments, but this was refused by the Council on the grounds that they did not have the necessary internal mechanisation to allow such payments. This was denied by Cheshire CC - do I have a legitimate claim?

lincroft1710 · 3 December 2017 at 2:55PM

GCRH wrote: »

Not to be outdone I immediately applied for interest on those ‘illegal’ payments, but this was refused by the Council on the grounds that they did not have the necessary internal mechanisation to allow such payments. This was denied by Cheshire CC - do I have a legitimate claim?

It is the VOA (Valuation Office Agency) who deal with rebanding. County councils do not deal with Council Tax collection or payment and Cheshire County Council was abolished in 2009, so it was either East Cheshire Council or West Cheshire Council who sent you the cheque.

There is no reference to interest on overpayment in CT legislation, so whichever council you are dealing with are correct in refusing to pay interest, there is no legal requirement for them to do so.

SuperSaver17 · 20 December 2017 at 9:07PM

Reading Borough Council
Was Band F
Now. Band D
Rebate from 2005 £7,748.96
Annual saving approx £700

Oh my, this hasn’t quite sunk in but a payment of over £7k was deposited to our account today, just in time for Christmas and it took one phone call and less than 4 weeks.

I was searching MSE for general advice on reducing household bills and had never even considered looking at our council tax. I followed the advice checking our neighbours banding and our property value when the tax was introduced. Our road is really eclectic and ranges from student accommodation to flats, 3 bed semis and 5 bed detached £1 million + properties (we don’t have one of those). We live in a semi with an F band and our other half/semi was band D. There are no other houses on the road the same as ours but I checked 4 houses either side and felt we were likely to re rebanded as E.
I was nervous our neighbours would also be rebanded as a result - increasing their payments and wanted to check we wouldn’t be named as the claimant. The VOA were brilliant, told me on the phone I had a strong claim and if our neighbours were rebanded they would simply say they were reviewing the road as a result of a query.

So this was a far better result that we could have wished for. 30 minutes research, a 5 minute call and 3 weeks later here we are.

It is definitely worth checking, follow the steps and guidance given and prepare your case.

I’ve used MSE for years and can’t thank Martin and the team enough.

sunnysomerset · 11 January 2018 at 12:50PM

Having purchased our property a year ago, we noticed out band was G, yet our next door neighbour, who purchased in the same week for £50k more was band E.
Our place is much bigger, but in poor condition and uglier! So I thought it worth challenging.
I applied citing about 10 examples from our immediate area of properties that we the same band as us, yet valued at double the amount! It made me realise how wrong the band was.
The verdict came back as 'denied' - based on our floor space.
I thought this was wrong, as it should be on house value, not floor space.
Our place is semi-detached with odd pokey garden - yet similar band houses were freestanding on acreage. It was unfair.
I appealed.
Valuation office pretty quickly offered me a reduciton to F which I happily accepted. I still think E would be fair too, but happy enough with F.
Expecting to save around £350 per year and will be more acceptable to future buyers.
Happy Days, and thank you.

lincroft1710 · 11 January 2018 at 2:58PM

sunnysomerset wrote: »

Having purchased our property a year ago, we noticed out band was G, yet our next door neighbour, who purchased in the same week for £50k more was band E.
Our place is much bigger, but in poor condition and uglier! So I thought it worth challenging.

Valuation office pretty quickly offered me a reduciton to F which I happily accepted. I still think E would be fair too, but happy enough with F.

The condition of a dwelling cannot be taken into account when valuing for CT purposes.

elonii · 29 January 2018 at 1:59PM

Local Borough Council: Dumfries & Galloway
Council Tax Band Before: G
Council Tax Band After: F
Amount refunded: £329
Annual saving going forward: £470

Thanks to the great info on here, I submitted a rebanding appeal via the VOA website on a newly purchased house. My house is a bungalow on a street of many different types of houses, and we had no comparables. However, thanks to lots of online floorplans from similar sized properties being available online I was able to send information on comparable properties in the locality that were banded F.

It took quite a while for the local assessors to get back to me after the initial letter acknowledging my appeal (about 2 months). They then booked a time with me to come out and measure. I had a totally fascinating chat with the assessor who was kind enough to say during the visit he felt I was correct and he would struggle to justify the house as a band G.

Interestingly, in Scotland they base the banding more off looking at the council registered floorplan. In the case of my house, a Sun Room with a connected potting shed had tipped it into the wrong band after the valuers had miscalulated how big the sun room was and given it too much weighting in the valuation.

Thanks to MSE for giving me the courage to appeal!

Robill · 3 April 2018 at 5:46PM

Local Council: Waverley
Tax Band before: F
Tax Band after: E
Amount refunded: £5,598
Annual Saving: £314

Thank you so much. I would never have thought of doing this without seeing Martin's programme.
Spoke to a lovely lady in the VOA office and, after 25 years in the wrong band, received an new banding.
So easy to do! Phoned VOA on 5th March and new banding issued 18th March. Very impressed.
Cash in bank account 13th April.

WJE_2 · 7 April 2018 at 12:59PM

Thanks so much Martin
I got a rebate dated back to the year 2000 and received over £2k
Great result
Thanks again

Council Tax Rebanding SUCCESS stories

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