Council tax banding. Has anyone successfully challenged their banding

[notacooldad]

I ha e just found out that my house on a block of 14 is in a higher banding than everyone else.
We are a semi detached house and next door is lower. Some houses on the block are double fronted and have large back gardens.
I've only found out by chance as it never crossed my mind to query it before.
If you've had a successful challenge does anything get backdated?

Not exactly, although I got my neighbour's tax band increased when I enquired why their property was a band lower despite being exactly the same as mine. So the process does work in that sense at least.

In all likelihood it will rather increase other properties than lower yours...

I live in fear of this! We are inexplicably a lower band than most of the basically identical houses on our road. I'm sure someone will query it one day and ours will increase!

Yeah, someone queried why theirs was lower than ours and had our whole streets increased.., I’ve never heard of anyone’s being lowered, practically, although I believe it is possible.

My neighbour did. His was lowered by 2 bands from D to B with a massive cheque paid to him. Our houses are identical on this street so it was never likely we'd go up! Tbh I actually think the whole street should be Band A not Band B, but I'm struggling to find evidence of the valuations at the right dates.

I did. We lived in a basement flat at a time and we were put on Band C which seemed extortionate given that we had a single skylight above the kitchen and two tiny slits below the pavement level in each bedroom as our only sources of daylight. The minute the council assessor walked through the door, she said "I think we made a mistake". We had our band lowered to A and were refunded the difference from the date we registered as occupiers.

I did this some years ago. My house was inexplicably in a higher band than the other three identical houses in the terrace. I followed the instructions on Moneysavingexpert.com to the letter and got it reduced back to the day I moved in.

I did a barn conversion initially band F changed to bad E (but this was 2013)

Did they find out it was you?

My mum did not long after the system was introduced.
We tried a few years ago for ours when we discover neighbouring identical properties were on a lower band. We didn't hear anything until our NDN called to ask had our CT band been increased 🫣 We just said ours had always been the higher band.

Yes. A neighbour approached us to ask if we knew we were on a higher band than the majority of houses on the estate. He was looking at selling and realised he was a higher band too.
DH challenged it and we got a refund and moved to the same band as everyone else.
I suspect our neighbour told us so we could get the blame if everyone else got moved up!

I suspect it's much more likely this would happen. I've known 3 people enquire and none of them have had their band lowered, all three had the rest of the streets bands increased to be inline with theirs.

Yep 👍 my cousin did, she had to put up a fight but got a lower banding in the end!

If everyone accidentally in a lower band was put into a higher band then increases won't end up being as much to meet targets though so it still benefits people over time.

I did, jointly with other houses and got over £6k back, was amazed

No, but I really think the council tax system needs a revamp. It's absurd that houses for sale with hugely varying asking prices have the same council tax band. In my village there are three houses for sale one at £1,695,000, one at £735,000 and one at £625,000 all with the same band council tax.

Also, every property should have a water meter.

Yes DH did this a few years ago and got ours lowered. Of course it's back up now even higher due to all the increases, but still 😆

We also had a neighbour query theirs and got the rest of the streets raised.

Given that the band's were calculated based on the valuation of the property in 1991 if you challenge it I expect instead of your band coming down your neighbours would increase.

I had mine successfully changed about 5yrs ago. Had been in the property five years before realising most of my neighbours were in a lower band. It took two attempts but it was back paid to the date I moved into the property. My next door neighbour applied straight after me and also got a refund.

I would like to but I am worried that instead of decreasing mine they'll increase the neighbours' instead. I'm in a new build (well 8 years old), 1,200 sq ft and I'm in the same band as the largest houses in my street that are 2,000 sq ft. How can that be right?

Every government knows this but no-one wants the cost and grief of doing a re-valuation. The Daily Mail would run endless stories of sad faced pensioners facing big increases, even if there were as many winners as losers

We challenged successfully and had ours lowered. The house was previously an end terrace with a huge garden. The last owner sold the garden and built a house attached to ours, making ours a mid terrace again. It made sense we paid the same as the mid terrace neighbours.

My sister did, many years ago. They got theirs reduced and then promptly did an extension.

I wasn't impressed.

My parents were in a G. The lady who had it before them enjoyed being a G because she thought it gave her status….after 10 years they got it reduced to F and didn’t have to pay any for a while because they were in so much credit