Has anyone tried Council Tax rebanding????

[LoveBeingAtHomeOnMyOwn]

Was looking on the MSE site as seriously need to get a grip on finaces and one of the things mentioned in counciltax banding and whether you are in the right band.

Does anynone the sorts of things they use to band a house in the first place? Has anyone done this?

tia

It's done on the value of the property in 1991, I believe. They often just looked at a whole area and said "they're all band B," or whatever. Hence the mistakes.

Ours went from B to A which saved us about £300 a year, but it's obviously dependent on how much your council charges for council tax.

Be warned, it can go up a band as well, so you need to be pretty damned sure your house is in a higher band than it should be. There was info about it on our local council website, so look there. If there isn't anything, there will still be an e-mail address of someone who can advise you

HTH

Thanks MrsChemist, defo want to avoid any risk of it going up. I'll try the concil website.

I tried it twice but it was refused. Even though there are houses in my street with more bedrooms that are on a lower banding! The letters said I need to take it further if i disagreed. My house wasn't built at the time the tax was introduced - its a new 2 bedroomed house built in an old established road or 3 bedroomed houses.

Love being home on your own - was yours agreed straight away or did you need to take it further?

We had ours refused in our old house (in Wales - I think the valuation date might be different?) which was a 2/3 bed 1940s masionette.
A nice man from the Council came round and said he could see our point and that his personal opinion was that is probably should be Band A not B based on what it was worth (let alone what it was worth on the valuation date) but that we had no chance of the Council agreeing as there was nothing in the whole town (pop c8000) in Band A even the 1bed flats!

This was a few years ago (2006?) before we completely rennovated it and I think it would probably be a boarderline B/C now (it is now rented out btw)

i suspect if others around you are on a lower banding and their houses are quite similar there is more chance of their banding being raised htan yours being lowered!

I heard ML on the radio talking about this so I went online to check - I found that although we are in the correct band our direct neighbours, whose house was built at the same time and is slightly bigger than ours (we bought at the same time and they paid more), are in a lower band!

So instead of saving money it left me feeling a bit grr about the whole thing!

Obviously I'm not going to dob them in. But perhaps I will sneakily put a bit of my rubbish in their bins just to make me feel I'm getting my money's worth from them.

No I've not done it. Just wondering about it.

Read the notes on your council's website and check the Valuation Office Agency website for advice. There are only certain times when you can apply for rebanding and there are quite strict time limits. IIRC if the band goes up, it won't take affect until there is a relevant transaction ie; sale, but it's best to check that.

The other thing to consider is whether any of the adults in your household might be disregarded, thus entitling you to a discount? Alternatively, if you are on a low income, you might be entitled to council tax benefit. Your local council can advise in both cases.

I have done it successfully.

Where we used to live I noticed shortly after we moved in that some of the houses were on different tax bands. It was some barn conversions built around a courtyard and the houses were all quite similar, no reason for them not all being on the same tax band. We were on the higher band so I applied to the council pointing this out and asked to be put into the lower band, and was successful. After we applied the rest of our neighbours on the higher band all also applied to be lowed and were also all successful.

I think we were very lucky though because our house happened to have been sold just a couple of months after the date houses were last valued for CT purposes. It sold for just over the amount that would put it into the higher bracket.

Yes. We moved into a house which was in a higher banding than our old one and thought it seemed too much. Council came round and assessed it and, luckily, moved it down a band.
The lucky previous occupant got a rebate of 1,000 pounds when I told them to claim!