Council Tax Bandings

[Tin man]

Hi, Last year I saw "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" and they suggested getting your Council Tax banding reduced , if your property was smaller than your surrounding neighbour's property. I followed the advice and was successful in getting our banding reduced from Band D to Band C and received a cheque from the Council for nearly �400 for the overpayment's we'd made. However I got a letter today from the Valuation Office, saying the banding was going back to a Band D from Monday 21st January. I rang to enquire why and was told that the Valuation Officer had made a mistake at the time and was re setting the banding. Can they do this? What do you suggest I do? I'm worried in case I have to pay it back as we no longer have the money. Someone is suppose to be ringing me back from the valuation Office, but I'm still waiting. Thanks in advance for any help.

[SRH]

Only thing I can suggest is ringing your local paper - sounds like a council 'blunder' that could leave a few red faces - and ensure you get justice!

[fletcher.5]

The longer the phone call takes, the better, as these people are so incompetent & if the worse comes to the worse blame the TV show. To be honest you are dealing with f----- idiots STAND YOUR GROUND as, they made the initail error

[Emu2005]

Hi,
Was it just that your house was smaller than your neighbours, or do you believe it to be worth quite a bit less than theirs?

If you do still genuinely feel that you should be in a Band C, I would not only contest paying the overpayments back but also them putting it back to a Band D at all.

When I got my parent's house rebanded I had to do lots of research on house prices, average price rises, bands of houses in surroundig streets etc and it took 2 letters and a meeting with the office for them to change it, so it surprises me they just rebanded it on your request.

So now they might be thinking they didn't put up enough of a fight, I would write to them stating you believe it should be Band C, have a look on moneysavingexpert.com for things you can do to back this claim up, and state the shouldn't reband it. Ask for evidence from them as to why they are rebanding, surely now they have put it to C, if they want to change it they will need a good reason.

Good luck with this - don't give up you just need to keep on at them!

[buildersmate]

First things first. A couple of the people above seem to think that Council Tax banding is something to do with the your council. It isn't - the Valuation Office Agency decide.
Secondly, please indicate whether your house is being singled out in this way - it seems most unlikely, and I assume ALL your neighbours are similarly impacted?
Thirdly I do not believe you will have to pay anything back.
Fourthly, your successful attempt at asking the VOA for a reduction may have been the trigger that helped them spot a mistake in all the surrounding properties, and yes, I do believe that properties can be re-assessed if a mistake has occurred. If you look here you will see that an appeal may result in one of three outcomes - no change, a change up or a change down.
http://www.voa.gov.uk/news/information/your_co uncil_tax_band.htm
In England you can appeal the new banding within 3 months. See here
http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/appeals_dire ct.htm

[Tin man]

Thanks for all these replies. They still haven't got back to me yet, which is annoying and worrying. I did initially have to go through a bit of rigmarole and form filling / reason giving etc to get the bandng reduced, they didn't just take my word for it. I actually followed the steps on the Tonight programmes' website and the Valuation Office's website. There are approximately 29 houses on our estate and ours is the smallest. Also has no ensuite like the others have, only 1 garage, whereas most of the others have 2 garages etc etc. I used all these reasons to get it rebanded and nothing has been added or changed since they agreed. I understood from the guy I spoke to yesterday that the person that had originally re-banded it had "made a mistake" and he would get him to ring me to explain. I'm worried I'll have to repay the amount the council re-imbursed me plus the difference from Band C to Band D over the last year, plus go straight up to the new Banding! Have asked my immediate neighbours if theirs has gone up or if they've had a similar letter and they haven't. There was only us that applied for the reduction though.

[buildersmate]

I see.
I'm sure you appreciate that under the banding system, just because you have a slightly smaller house doesn't mean that the house would fall below a value that drops it into a lower band. Its all theoretical because the values (in England) relate to values as at 1993. I don't know to what extent you had to show the theoretical value in 1993 of your house, but I would do this by assessing its value now (ask a couple of estate agents around) then backtrack to a value in 1993 by using Regional Housing statistics from the Government's statistical agency. Maybe this is what you had to do to the original application. However, although I've never heard of a situation where the VOA backtrack on a decision they've made earlier, I trust they've given you some actual figures to show you why they thought your claim is now nulled? Otherwise it is all a bit "we've done the figures but we aren't telling you what they are".
Going back to the original point, I believe the Agency record (you can inspect it on their website for your property) will show that your house was changed from Band D to C last year, then from Band C to D as of 21/01/08. You would not have to pay any arrears.

[Tin man]

Thanks buildersmate. Still no-one has got back to me, so I don't know why they've backtracked but at least I can get some info ready before I tackle them on Monday. I'm glad I found this site !! Cheers again.