Challenge council tax

[GOODCAT]

When we moved house our house got moved up a council tax band we challenged it and lost. The house next door which would originally have been identical to ours sold afterwards. Its council tax band has not increased. Prior to it being sold it was extended so it is bigger than ours. It has an extra two rooms downstairs than ours.

These are the only two houses locally that would have been the same. We have done some more digging as this seems really unfair. We now have evidence of what that house sold for 6 months before April 1991 which puts it firmly in the original band.

I have lost the paperwork we had before, but I want to challenge it again. I cannot figure out how to do this. I have been on the gov.uk website and I just go round I circles. I cannot phone during office hours and cannot figure out the postal address.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Has anyone had success in challenging their council tax band some years after losing a challenge. It just feels blatantly unfair.

You need to contact the VOA.

I second wowfudge you need to contact the VOA (Valuation Office) they value it council tax bill and collect it.

Before you moved in there would have been a marker on the VOA website against the address indicating that it was possibly going to have a band increase. Usually they know about alterations to the house through planning/building regs.

Is there a marker on next door's? Did the use permitted development or planning permission for their alterations and do you know on what grounds your house increased? ie bedrooms

It seems odd that next door hasn't increased but it does depend what they did compared to yours. I used to work in council tax a loooong time ago so the memory is a bit rusty.

My last house had the marker but no increase, the previous owners had put a conservatory on the back and taken a tiny section off the back of the very long garage to create a utility room. But I can see why it wasn't increased. It was a 3 bed detached in a D band, the house across the road was an 4 bed detached and an E band and ours wasn't comparable.

Meant to say it is more likely that you will get the neighbour's band increased rather than yours decreased. So be prepared for that.

www.gov.uk/challenge-council-tax-band