Want to challenge our Council Tax band - does anyone have advice please?

[CharminglyOdd]

We live on a very small estate that was developed at the height of the property boom (about 60 houses and flats) on a derelict piece of land in the middle of a run-down area. None of the houses or flats sold for their asking prices (extreme to my mind, when compared with other houses locally not on the estate: small four bed house at over £300k and we live in the North East). Due to repossessions, the economy and bankruptcy (of the developer) the current value of the houses is approx half of the developer's original price.

First we rented in the street and I called to query the Council Tax band (Band C for a 2 bed flat). The council worker told me I could only challenge it within a certain period of moving in so, now we have just bought the house I would like to do so.

According to the Nationwide checker (via MSE) our house should be solidly in Band C (we paid £155k) but is in Band D. All the houses in the street (but only within the estate) are similarly high so we can't say our immediate neighbours are lower than us. We, and our neighbours, believe that the council used the original, never met, high asking prices when valuing the properties and therefore they have all been over valued. But according to MSE there is no point challenging your bracket unless you and your neighbours differ. Does anyone have any advice please? If our neighbours are the same as us is there grounds for challenging solely on the house prices and the fact that the original prices were over-inflated?

Similar but older houses in a nearby street (same bedrooms, semi-detached, similar gardens and slightly lower asking price) are Band B, so I think a Band C estimate is correct.

Thanks for any help you can offer :)

I challenged a rates (council tax) increase a few years back based on the lack of facilities, vermin , blocked drains and a lack of street lighting, my rates were reduced by almost 50% down to just over 300 pounds per year so it is worth trying.

We've recently been downgraded from an E to a D for a two bed house.

I think the rule about claiming within a set amount of time has changed recently. We've been here six years and claimed a couple of months ago.

At the time I read an article on Money Supermarket about it but I can't find it now. This one has some information:

www.moneysupermarket.com/c/news/five-ways-to-claim-money-thats-yours/0015721/

Ours seemed straightforward in that our next door neighbour, in exactly the same house, was on a lower band than us.

From what I can gather you need to look at/compare local prices in 1991.

I would advise to read as much as you can about the best way of putting your case across (from places like Money Supermarket). Our claim was initially rejected with no appeal. But an audit caused our case to be reviewed and we were granted the downgrade. It's a significant amount of money - £300 per year backdated to when we moved here.

Good luck!

We were regraded by incorporating an annex into main house, so main house went up one band but the annex no longer has its own band so we are now saving over £500 a year and have additional living space.
I think it's the VOA - Valuation Office Agency - which comes to look at your house, monitor square footage/acommodation and decide what the value might have been when they set the bands yonks ago, which band, then report that to your local council and they notify you which band & tax charge you will be on. The VOA have local offices and you can book an appointment direct with them. Your Council Tax dept should be able to give you phone number if not found online.
Have found them very approachable and open to an informal chat about how it works.
If your neighbours are in the same boat, perhaps talk to a few of them and do a combined review?