Council tax band challenge

[Rojo019]

Hi has anyone challenge a council tax band and if so what was the outcome and is there any advice?

Just looked on my own street and the 2 bed semi detached properties which have 2 double bedrooms around 20 years old are C bands. The 3 bed semis are D bands so times have changed and more is being charged, no surprise there.

Successfully changed the banding on a new build that we rented. I provided data of banding of similar properties and data on how much the place should've cost in 1991 based on current value and historical values of similar places.
It was very obviously in the wrong band, think was D or E from memory (15 year ago) when it should have been B or C.

I have a feeling that our London council of the time had quite the habit of overhauling new builds.

Before council tax when it was rateable value, we challenged ours as it was for house and garage but the garage had been knocked down before we bought it. An assessor came out and said the amount stood as we now had central heating which was not accounted for before. Seems you can’t win if you improve your house.

WOW! I sent my challenge today. How long until you received a reply from them? Thank you!

i just checked and all of the houses on my road are the same band (band D), even though some are semi-detached and some are terraced. It seems quite high, but maybe it’s right enough - I imagine they’re all 3 bedrooms.

I’ve been digging into this area quite a bit. The key thing is usually not just “my neighbours pay less”, but whether you can show a pattern of comparable properties: same type, similar size/layout etc.

I built a tool called Rebandify that helps pull this kind of evidence together for households challenging their council tax band. I’m the founder, so take this as disclosed, but the basic checks are:

1. compare similar nearby properties,
2. check the historic valuation logic,

It also generates an argument you can copy/paste into your challenge.

The link is rebandify.co.uk