Our house has just been put into higher council tax band! Can they do this? We have lived here for 22 years

[Trampauline]

We live in a detached house. We received a letter just a few days ago from Valuations Office Agency. This states that "a previous owner made alterations to your home; we must include the additional value of those alterations in the band following your purchase". (The previous owner added a two storey extension in the late 90s). The letter states that "if your band increases, we will send you formal notification and also notify the Council who will revise your bill".

Today we have had a letter from the Council re council tax and we have been put in the next band up. How can they do this? I know how it's come about. It's thanks to a neighbour. A new house has been built two doors down on garden land. The new owners challenged their council tax band. They asked us and other neighbours what band we were in and how many bedrooms we had.

Looking on the gov.uk website it says that if a house has been improved/extended the council will put an improvement indicator on the property. This will be picked up next time the property is sold and the council tax band will be re-evaluated by the Valuations Office. So how can we be hit with this now? this really does not seem fair. Help!

you’re lucky that they are not retrospectively clawing back what you should have been paying from the day you purchased

i would be counting my lucky stars they’re not.

and very odd your neighbours asked you rather than just find out online themselves 😐

We purchased a house and our council band jumped up three bands because the previous owner had extended it from a two bed to a large 4 bed. We expected this as I knew that bands could be re-evaluated when a house was sold onwards. This happened within six months of us moving in.
I have never heard of it happening two decades after an original sale though.

I would contact the council and query the validity of their increase. However, if it is correct, be thankful that it is only being increased now, and that it wasn’t increased 22 years ago when you purchased the house.

it wasn’t twenty years after the sale

twenty years after the work done

Unfortunately this is the risk of someone challenging a banding - they can go up as well as down and can also affect all the neighbours if their bandings are also wrong.

Ouch, that's annoying. It's not the neighbours fault though. I guess you have been lucky to have underpaid for so long.

The OP says she's lived there for 22 years so it is that long after the sale.

our house was revalued after we bought it but I think it was only a couple of years after.

Our house was revalued and went up two bands when we bought it, the previous owners had extended, we're now the highest band on the street although other people have also extended (but not yet sold on). You are very lucky they hadn't done this 22 years ago so don't complain.

I’m assuming this will happen to us sooner or later. Previous owners extended from a 2 bed to a 4 bed and were already a weird island - we’re a band lower than most of the other houses on the street. As others have said I think you have to just think of it as having been lucky to be underpaying for so long.

That doesn’t sound right, if it is based on improvements from many years ago.

I’d be contacting them to clarify. I know it could technically go up following a neighbour’s appeal, or following a sale, but this just seems too long after.

They are re-banding it based on the current increased size.

Of course they can do this: they are applying the rate for the size.

Like a PP I would just be happy that you have underpaid for 22 years and relieved that they are not trying to claw back any underpayment.

It is their own fault that they did not re-assess when you bought it, but not a reason not to charge the appropriate rate now.

It is one of the advantages of extending rather than moving that you don’t pay increased CT for extensions you do yourself. But it does get re-banded, if appropriate, when the property next changed hands.

This

I don't think this is right. When I bought my little 4 room + bathroom & kitchen house, I challenged my CT band because I was paying the same as my husband who has an 11 room +bathroom & kitchen house, that includes a basement flat, in the next street. They said the bands are based on the value of the house in 1992 or whenever they valued and can't be changed.

do you think “not right” in the moral sense?

The bands can be changed a) if they are assessed and found to be in the wrong band and b) if the house is enlarged into the criteria for the next band. (As in the OP’s case).

The bands can definitely be changed. My last house was reassessed (downwards) and I got the difference back from the council calculated over all the many years I’d lived there. I was delighted.
I surprised they’re not clawing back the money for a band increase so I think you’re lucky to have underpaid for so long.

Difficult to apply common sense to something that doesn’t operate on common sense principles.
Does a fancier house cost the council more? Probably not.

Probably did that as they didn't want to trigger any investigation. I imagine they thought they'd be re-evaluated down not that everyone else would be re-evaluated up.

No but the chances are that a bigger house does. They ask how many rooms you have.

Bigger houses generally hold more people who use more services paid for by CT.

The single person discount helps single adults living in bigger houses, including single parents of several kids, for example.

It seems really odd that they didn't put you up a band when you bought the house, as is usually the rules. It might be worth challenging - there is useful info on grounds for a challenge on the VOA website.

When we moved house a year ago, the council wrote to us to say the band was going to go up, because of an extension done by the previous owners. However, the extension is tiny (single storey 3m x 2.5m?) and a very small increase in the overall square meterage. We also researched the sqm and council tax bands of other houses in the area, and submitted a challenge. Amazingly we were successful! So it's worth looking into.

Thank you @Wigeon it's really helpful to hear about other people's experiences. We are just really surprised that they are doing this as it completely contradicts what it says on the Gov.uk website about how the valuation office rebanding process works

Ours went up when a neighbour challenged theirs. Most of the streets did as pretty much everyone has extended over the years. Some people are still fuming at the neighbour (who had no chance of winning an appeal - they bought a 6/7 bed house that had been extended from a 2 bed cottage!) and many believe only the appeal triggered them into looking at the rest of the houses. The reassessed all the houses in the area.

None of the people who appealed increases (we didn’t as felt it was pointless) won

I recently looked into our Council tax banding: theres a well-written basic guide on Money Saving Expert.

You're right, it doesn't seem fair, you should have been paying the higher rate for the past 22 years

www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/council-tax-bands-change/

This is useful information. Basically yes yours can go up, you are welcome to now challenge your own banding but you will have initially failed the "neighbour" test so you'll need to rely solely on the valuation.