Anyone done this successfully?
Any tips, pitfalls or perhaps letter template / language that tipped the balance in your favour?

I wrote a half-hearted letter 6/7 years ago and was rejected but I’m pretty adamant we’re still over-paying (the benchmark properties that they’ve used for us locally are all 20s/30s houses, whereas ours is a bland 70s box).
A recent valuation of ours puts us about £100k behind the sale price of the ‘others’ or ~25%-30%

Any ideas welcomed, ta

Had a stand up row in the street with the District Assessor.

Was restoring our house, which was built as one single larger detached house but was subsequently split into two separate flats.
We bought the upper flat (Band C) when we got married in 1997 and the lower flat in 2005 (Band D) and were converting it back to a single property.

This necessitated a valuation by the District Assessor to reclassify it for Council Tax.

Having done a bit of research on similar houses in our street and those adjacent, I was expecting him to give it a Band F.
He announced it was to be Band G.
Words ensued and it was only when I was able to point at other similar properties and rhyme off their bandings that he relented and decided to call it a “High F”, whatever that is.

Do your homework first.

I managed to get a flat we were renting reclassified. It was a one bed in a block with other larger 2 bed flats that were band A but for some reason it was Band B. I just wrote a letter and sent some printed info from Zoopla showing property values and they changed it.

Can you send them the valuation from the estate agent that you used and see if they will accept that?

Yes, did it successfully.
Refer to Money Saving Expert website for guidance.

Yes
As above, I did it when we moved in – as I understand it there are only certain times you can do it.

I created a list of recent sold or for sale houses (similar to ours in the sameish area) with prices and tax bands and compared them to ours.(sold date or on market, address,price sold or marketed at, tax band). – in my case our house was in the same band as housing costing over 100k more and 2 bands higher than houses very near our sold price.

Initially tried council and got nowhere (several letters and phone calls)so went to appeal, presented my evidence – basically the above list and saying that as the facts were that our house was up to £100k less than some houses in a lower tax band that we were incorrectly banded.
I won.

Interesting. We pay a higher band to our adjoining neighbours, despite being identical terraced houses.

But we’ve always held off notifying the council in case it has the wrong effect and forces their band up!

Interesting. We pay a higher band to our adjoining neighbours, despite being identical terraced houses.

They get a discount because of the “problem” neighbours. 😉

Anyone done this successfully?

Nope.

We have a downstairs extension, that looks from air like a big house, but its not.
Each side are houses much bigger (5 bed to our 3, and at least 2x floor area), and we pay the same.
On the road we have houses the same floor size(ish) going off Zoopla/sales brochures, who pay a band (or two!) less.
No game – would not re-classify. We are band F for a small 3 bed semi (albeit in nice place) – one of the bedrooms is 6’x7′ for example. 🙁

Could be perchy Percy, though I demand a reciprocal discount for lending them all my tools 😀

😆 @GordonS

I failed in my appeal

the property I can see right now from my front window, which is even bigger than mine, is a band C. It’s worth more than mine

I have the misfortune of living in a new build, so I’m a band E due to the crappy way they rated it when it was built.

i thought I had a very strong case with a lot of evidence but the assessor knocked me back 🙁

Oddly you are laughing at my dad 😀

I’m already on A…

I thought about it, but having spoke with a friend who challenged and eventually won i couldn’t be bothered.

You can check the bands of houses around you here: http://cti.voa.gov.uk/cti/inits.asp

You can challenge it online. Apparently they reject everysingle one, so be prepared to appeal with solid evidence. As mentioned above, if its an old house split into flats they seem to apply no logic to each flat.

Good luck

But we’ve always held off notifying the council in case it has the wrong effect and forces their band up

Guilty as charged. Ours no change, neighbours up a band after we pointed out they were in a lower band. Still friends though 😳

Thanks all. That sounds like my next project then…

Great link btw windydave

Don’t bother talking to your council, they won’t want to know as it’s the Valuation Office Agency who set the bands.

Ive put in two applications to have a house rebanded (once for me, once on my mothers behalf). Both times because a neighbour with the same size house was inexplicably on a lower band. They knocked me back but they agreed to lower the band on my mothers house. As the banding can be backdated several years her council had to cough up about £1500 pounds in overpaid council tax.

Well worth half an hour of my time one evening.

I’m in the middle of trying this myself as our neighbour’s house is very similar but a Band F, and we are band G. The assessor came around and among her information she had our house size as 199m2 and the neighbour at 149m2. I asked her measuring criteria, did the measurements myself the next day and came up with 175 for ours and 173 for the neighbour! She thinks our house is near the border. band G orginally covered houses valued something like £102k – 206k, and when I look at houses across the road that sold for twice what ours sold and on the same band as us it’s a bit annoying. I’m going to pursue it all the way though.

Our tax is £3000 a year! The lower band would be £2600.

My wife recently had a battle with the council after their nursery school calculations had us paying £30/month that we weren’t supposed to pay. She won. We could be paying more than that in excess council tax, and for a life long house it’s worth the effort (£35/month over 40 years…).

Scottish assessor’s have a rule where you are supposed to apply for a change within 6 months of buying a place.

I think you can apply to have it reviewed at any point, girlfriend’s Dad has successfully done it recently and they been in the same house for thirty years.
If you build an extension or do something that would move the house into another band that only comes into effect when the house is sold.

You can query it at any time, but official line is you can only put in a proposal to change it within 6 months of becoming the owner / tenant, with the exception of a local change which you believe has changed the value of your property or they have re-banded the property.

https://www.valuationtribunal.gov.uk/your-appeal-type/council-tax/council-tax-banding/

I only found out years later my flat is a band higher than downstairs, yet pretty much the same properties. They have slightly bigger footprint due to extension though I have the front entrance. Both same number of rooms. Have wondered about appealing, but it’s way beyond 6 months.