Council tax bands-its wrong

[Bayliss]

Lived in our cottage for about nine years and it is only this year I decided to check the banding's of my near neighbours houses. To my surprise I found that the three homes opposite, all larger than our home are placed in a band lower than ours. But I am confused as to whether I an entitled to apply for a re-banding or not. Any comment advise please.

 

[Lime]

Speak to your local councillor about it is my advice.

 

[Flyfisher]

There is certainly a mechanism for challenging your council tax banding. It seems to me you have little to lose by applying.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/YourlocalcouncilandCouncilTax/CouncilTax/DG_10037424

But don't get me started on the unfairness of a system that gives rise to a very real tax liability while being based on purely notional values and takes no account of someone's ability to pay . . . especially when the original property has already been paid for out of taxed income in the first place plus a whopping lump of SDLT as well! :evil:

 

[MdB]

...it is only this year I decided to check the banding's of my near neighbours houses.

Out of interest, how did you do this? Is there a database somewhere or did you just go and ask them?

Answered my own question: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4017252

 

[tobydog]

From my recollection you have 6 months from the date you move in to lodge a complaint. We moved into our cottage in March 2009 and I immediately felt that our Band E rating was unfair. Whilst it's difficult to do direct comparisons, there just happened to be a timber framed, thatched, 3 bedroomed cottage just down the road. They were a Band D. I lodged the necessary documents, got a phone call from the local council valuer (or whatever he was) to talk through a few things, and then they agreed with my case. We're now a Band D. £50 a month less. What a waste of money for the previous owners.

 

[Bayliss]

Looking over some local council bumph and it is looking like I cannot ask for a banding re-valuation, even though I appear to be at least one band higher then my neighbours bigger homes. The whole thing seems very unfair saying that I cannot appeal owing to the arbitrary requirements not being met. One slim hope maybe 'becoming a new tax payer'. Now I am the listed tax payer so if I change that over to my wife she will be the 'new tax payer'? So with the advise in here and elsewhere + the booklet I found it looks doubtful and extremely unfair. If declined I may consider taking it further and kicking up a stink.
I will keep you updated.

 

[Feltwell]

I will keep you updated.

Please do - as I have just discovered we are a band higher than our immediate neighbours house, which is fractionally smaller than ours but is detached. It does seem rather random - the 1980's houses in the road behind me are in 2 different bands, despite them all being pretty much the same. Some are higher than mine, despite being smaller houses on smaller plots.

I also see that I have an "improvement indicator" next to mine - so the band may change if I come to sell. I suspect that's due to my getting PP to build the garage.

 

[tobydog]

When I was in my previous house I applied for planning permission to do an extension. I received the planning approval but decided to move instead. A few months after moving I got a text from the new owners asking if I knew why they had been moved up one band for an extension they hadn't built. I explained the circumstances but I wasn't sure whether the trigger for the increase was the planning approval, or the sale of the house. That was in Essex. With my current house in Suffolk, the planning approval hasn't triggered any such action and I have no idea what happens if we later sell.

 

[Flyfisher]

Therein lies the farce of using notional values to assess a tax liability. Presumably a house with planning consent for enlargement is 'worth' more than one without. This might have pushed the house into a higher band. It's a stupid and unfair system.

Imagine being assessed for income tax based on a notional measure of what someone might be able to earn instead of what they actually earn. Such a scheme would be rightly ridiculed, yet that's what we have with council tax. :roll:

 

[tobydog]

I didn't hear anymore from them so I don't know if they won the battle with the council to get the banding back to how it was. Very unfair if they didn't. I did wonder if the banding increase was just a default position in that everyone who applies for planning gets an automatic increase unless you can argue your case otherwise. Again, very unfair.

It's been two years since our approval and 18 months since building work was completed (only 2 months since final building regs sign off but that's another story :roll: ) so who knows whether I have a brown envelope heading my way any time soon!

 

[Flyfisher]

I don't know if policy varies between councils but I can confirm that we extended our Hertfordshire house twice in the 90s but the council tax band didn't change. It was marked for review but that was never done while we lived there, so I assume that such reviews are done when the property changes hands.

Mind you, I don't know how they would assess the tax band today because the current bands are based on house prices on 1st April 1991. It's bad enough that houses were allocated bands based on notional values in the first place, but how on earth could anyone fairly work out house price inflation from 1991 to today? I know that Nationwide BS maintains a house price index, but the regions are fairly broad. I can see that the results would be indicative, but that's not much help if the house is bordering two bands.

I realise I'm sounding like a stuck record but it's a ludicrous and unfair method of taxation. Still, didn't the window tax lead to a rebellion?
We can live in hope. :lol:

 

[AMc]

I appealed the banding of our first flat - a "new" school conversion. The never received the initial notification because they used the wrong address and used 2nd class unsigned for post. As we were within the 6 months of the first bill I appealed anyway. I eventually got a copy of the "notification" that had been used to set the banding of all 56 flats - three lines handwritten by the developer "nos 1,3,5 etc are 1 bed. nos 7,16 etc are 2 bed. All others are 3 bed or bigger".
Our 2 bed flat was two bands above a friends 3 bed, 4 storey house in a conservation area in the same area and the same borough despite their house costing 2x as much at the same time we bought ours.

In the end they refused to discuss it and arranged a formal hearing at the Valuation Office. The VO then asked to inspect the property at less than 24 hours notice (because they insisted on using the wrong postcode each time they wrote and the letter took over a week to arrive). I wasn't in and so the whole thing was summarily dismissed.

I would have fought it, but by then I had agreed a sale to the next door neighbour. I showed him the "documentation" that had been used to value the flats and set the bands and told him he had 6 months from the purchase to appeal which he intended to do - as he had several other flats to let in the block.

Here I was advised by several friends in the building industry against getting Building Control to issue a completion certificate for our renovation as it routinely triggers a rebanding of the house. If not having the certificate holds up the sale when we eventually move then I will let the purchaser know and either get the certificate which shouldn't be an issue and let them pay more tax or let them leave the sleeping dogs alone

 

[JoceAndChris]

I'm so happy with my Council Tax band! The house was just recovering from being near derelict in 91, I guess they thought it was still without electricity and a road to it. So ssssshhh.

But what a mad, random system it is.

 

[Maddie-Rose]

Hi haven't read the other replies, so please excuse me if I repeat anything.

Were the other houses bought in a state of disrepair? if so they may well of appealed the banding that was with the property when purchased. When I bought my Chapel, it was a repossession in a complete state of disrepair, we appealed the banding value, as the house was purchased a lot cheaper than the band value said it was worth. We had it accessed and it was reduced a band. So we have been lucky over the current years of having a cheaper council tax band then perhaps it now should be.

Have you had your house valued since starting work? if so, is it worth less then the band suggests? is so, you could be in a position to stop works and appeal.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I'm so happy with my Council Tax band! The house was just recovering from being near derelict in 91, I guess they thought it was still without electricity and a road to it. So ssssshhh.

But what a mad, random system it is.

Hate to have to point out that the council tax that you (and, on occasion, I) so nobly pay, out of the goodness of our hearts, does keep the conservation officers (like me) well-supplied with dancing girls peeling grapes, and exotic cheroots and fine wines, in those parts of the local council offices that the public (quite rightly, as they would only disturb our slumbers) aren't allowed into

 

[FamilyWiggs]

We can live in hope. :lol:

Some of us do, or at least nearby.

 

[LadyArowana]

Hate to have to point out that the council tax that you (and, on occasion, I) so nobly pay, out of the goodness of our hearts, does keep the conservation officers (like me) well-supplied with dancing girls peeling grapes, and exotic cheroots and fine wines, in those parts of the local council offices that the public (quite rightly, as they would only disturb our slumbers) aren't allowed into

Very wise of them to keep you in such pleasant surroundings, otherwise there might be the temptation to a lifestyle upgrade funded by bundles of used notes in brown paper bags, from unscrupulous developers and frustrated householders. :lol:

 

[Moo]

That is a truly shocking suggestion, Milady.

Wash your mouth out with soap.

 

[Flyfisher]

Hate to have to point out that the council tax that you (and, on occasion, I) so nobly pay, out of the goodness of our hearts, does keep the conservation officers (like me) well-supplied with dancing girls peeling grapes, and exotic cheroots and fine wines, in those parts of the local council offices that the public (quite rightly, as they would only disturb our slumbers) aren't allowed into

Glad to hear you are looked after so well. :lol:

My tirade against council tax has nothing to do with wishing to squeeze hard working COs ( far from it, given that I'm probably getting more than my fair share of their expert help!), I just don't believe that property is a fair basis for such taxation since it only has a tenuous to link with someone's ability to pay. I have always favoured some form of local income tax for such things, where the ability to pay is implicit. Earn more, pay more - what could be fairer than that?

 

[Feltwell]

Council tax without doubt has it's flaws, but not as many as the Community Charge (aka Poll Tax) had. It was pretty much the first thing to be scrapped by the Conservatives after Maggie Thatcher resigned, as I remember. It was a disaster from the start.

Council Tax resembles the old rates system so strongly that to me it smacks of a rushed, ill-thought through reaction to the gross unpopularity of the Poll Tax, to try and regain some Tory support post-Thatcher and prior to the 1992 election.

20 years on and no-one of any party has had the guts to touch this political hot potatoe again and make any meaningful reforms :roll: