Anyone successfully challenged their council tax banding?

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Just that, really. I've read the Money Saving Expert guide, and it seems reasonably straightforward, but was wondering if anyone has a personal experience they could share?

We're considering an offer on a property which is banded a bit higher than we expected, so this is all speculation anyway at the mo!

yes we have done this, but dh did it so im not sure of the exact method but we got it moved down a level. then we ended up moving out soon after so didnt benefit from it much, and once we moved to our new place i think the council moved it up a band as they reassess it once you buy it?

We did on a new build 20 years ago.
They had taken the value of the new house and said that houses had risen so much since the last valuations had been done, and worked out how much it would have been then.
However ad a new build we argued that the.price we paid included things like new kitchens etc so the actual value of the house was less and low enough to bring it into a lower band

I posted on this thread about it, have a look here

There is a chance the rest of the street goes up whereby you are in the correct band and the rest aren't. I always advise do a lot of research first.

Yes, me!

Rang the council, they looked into it, job done and I ended up paying £1 for the whole year, no lump refund. My house was origianally going to be bigger, but the builders failed to let the council know they'd changed plans.

We did. At least one band, but it might have been 2. The council assessor had to come and look at the house. We gave him tea and lots of chocolate chip cookies. I think that helped. It saved us masses. Cheapest biscuits ever.

Thanks all, helpful to know

Just to add, if you decide to go ahead and buy the house, you have a limited time after purchase to ask for the council tax to be reassessed (you should be able to find the procedure on the local council's website). Also, councils only have the power to re-band when a property is sold, so you could find that you are legitimately in a much higher band that neighbours in comparable properties if they have lived there for a number of years - this is what happened to us unfortunately.

Yes, I have done it twice. First time, for some reason our house was in a higher band than the ones either side and they both had extensions and ours did not.

Second time was harder. I had to come up with two nearby homes which were very similar in lower bands (band E) and I managed this, but it was in a remote rural area this time. The Council tried to avoid by stating the previous occupant had not complained. It was owned by the church and lived in years ago by the vicar and it had been empty for some time.

Generally, I found the council to be reasonable and fine to deal with on both occasions. Do your homework first.