Hello all,

Has anybody successfully challenged their council tax band down??

We’ve recently purchased a house in Band E but most of the others on the street are Band D (like 95%) – this is especially odd as ours has a smaller overall plot of land and no extensions compared to the most of the others. Our direct neighbours both have larger plots and loft extensions (so a minimum or 1 additional room) yet are both band D. One was purchased within a year or so, the other around 10 years ago.

Wondering if it’s worth bothering trying to get it revised downwards or not….

Cheers!

House are rebanded when sold – I doubt anyone’s done anything other than looked at the average price for the area and applied a formula to your purchase price to reband it so it might be worth a go: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/council-tax-bands-change/

Yes, but it involved a stand up argument in the street with the District Assessor.

We bought two halves of  a previously split  house seperately ( Band C and Band D )and re-combined them in to  one big house again and had to get it re-rated for council tax purposes.

He proclaimed it to be Band G and  I vigorously debated his decision based on the banding of all the other houses in the street being lower. There was pointing and raised voices..

He eventually relented and declared it to be a “high band F then” before stalking off in the huff.

Yes done that. Provided a reasoned argument on evidence much like yours. Went through on the nod and over the last few years has saved us a decent amount of money. Have a go. What have you got to lose?!

If the OP challenges and is confirmed as band E do his neighbour’s houses get uplifted to E as well? Wouldn’t be popular if they did :p

It would have no effect on your neighbours council tax. If you challenge then the council may find a reason to actually change your council tax band for the worse, as in you have to pay more, so double check you have good reason to challenge.

I did. There were rules in place (South Oxfordshire District Council) regarding when you could claim. Luckily I could claim as my neighbour claimed when they moved in and were successful.

The bonus was that it was backdated. I received a refund of the difference for about 6 years. As did the previous owners to me too.

On the flip, our current house was re-banded up on purchase and I contested it, but was unsuccessful

I did once in a rented terrace that was listed as B but under their own on line assessment should have been A. I filled in a form and they came around to check it, and gave me a cheque for the difference, all very straightforward.

I’ve just realised this was Northamptonshire CC, perhaps that’s why they’re broke, haha.

Yes – and they said no. No reasoning, no explanation.

Like you, we are half the size of some on our street that are a band lower….

I looked on line and found that my house was the next band up compared to the other houses of the same design ( 80s built estate where the houses were a mix up of about 5 designs) I put in the paperwork and it was rejected. So i found the original planning permission which showed what each house design was and annotated it with the tax band and went with a copy to the district office and showed one of the staff who looked at it and asked if he could have it and a week later it was adjusted down and i had a nice big cheque from the council. This was about 10 years ago and he told me that they didnt go and look at the houses just at the maps

Yup

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/council-tax-band-reclassification/

Yes and I won. I received a letter about 2 months after buying my house informing me that my band was to go up, citing improvements carried out by the previous owner as the reason.

I challenged it due to the fact that the house had had minimal improvements carried out and was in a poor state of repair. They turned me down and told me I had to put it into writing. I did so and they turned me down again, at this point my last avenue was a final appeal involving a court hearing with the independent valuation tribunal service.

Many phone calls, emails and photos later, and after having prepared my evidence for court, I received a phone call the day before  the hearing telling me that they were not going to proceed and it would remain the same.

Fwiw, most of the other houses in my street are at the higher band.

I’ve just realised this was Northamptonshire CC, perhaps that’s why they’re broke, haha.

No, it’s the £50m new HQ building. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-43046692

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/council-tax-appeals-for-the-wrong-band/

Thanks all, interesting to hear both sides of it!

I think I’ll properly check the values of the existing ones against ours and see what it looks like then.

The valuation test on the moneysavingexpert site came out as band F for our house which is 2 bands higher than the majority of the houses on our street.

Cheers!

If you’re friendly with any neighbours, ask them – it was our next door neighbour who told us their band, and then said they’d all applied for re-banding at the start (and got it).

There are professional companies out there that will do the application for you for a cut.

I used to work with an officer that made decisions. He said when they brought council tax in it was a rush to get it in and get rid of the poll tax. Officers drove round the area and made decisions on banding as they drove down the street. These are referred to as 3rd gear decisions. A lot of them are wrong but as neighbours don’t normally discuss it, it’s usually missed.

Good luck.