Council Tax banding tribunal

[Adrian]

A couple of months ago, we moved. We knew the new place had an "Improvement Index" flag on it, but relative to the other places around, the banding still felt right. The flag was due to a kitchen/one bedroom extension being replaced with a slightly larger kitchen/one bedroom/ utility room extension.

Of course, there's no way to know if the VOA will agree until you actually move... Of course, when we get the letter, it said "Up a band". We queried that through the VOA's internal first-line query, and they've come back again with "Yep, we're right".

Quite apart from the actual cost difference - from £1800 to £2150/year - it just doesn't "feel right" - we're now the highest banded house in our little rural area, although we're not the "biggest"/"flashest" - in fact, the previous sale of ours was at about the same time as next door, in '98

- and theirs sold for over twice as much that time, damn near the same as we paid this year for this place...

The next step is an external tribunal. Has anybody been through that procedure? What's the score? Is it something worth paying a solicitor for? Would getting the estate agents (who seemed very surprised at the rebanding) involved be worth while?

Ta for any thoughts.

[Bob Minchin]

Certainly worth getting advice from someone who knows the appeals procedure and which arguments work and which don't.

Some years ago I took something to a planning tribunal many years ago and was totally un-prepared and I think this contributed to losing the appeal.

Whether a solicitor is the right person but they might know who to go to. Might be worth asking at Citizens Advice on a similar basis

[Piers]

Have you actually spoken to a VOA officer?

I've talked to a VOA officer here a couple of times - both times they visited me - and on both cases I found them very helpful. The first case was similar to yours - I was applying for a rebanding having moved in (where I was trying to get a double banding collapsed to a single banding).

After the inspection the VOA officer (and I've since learned he was the chief guy at our VOA office) told me straight that he'd be recommending remaining as is, and then gave me clear reasons why - along with some guidance on when and how I might succeed (couched in the theoretical - he didn't want to actually tell me how to reduce my council tax).

Given his explanations, and some subsequent research on the internet on the back of what he told me I concluded that I would struggle to win on appeal, so I backed down.

IIRC, the key is the value your property as it is now would have been at some date in the past (quite a while ago in England I think - much more recent in Wales). So, I'd have thought if you can provide evidence that the property as it is now would have cost too little whenever that date was to be in the band they're proposing whenever that date was. But IANAL!

[Piers]

Have you actually spoken to a VOA officer?

I've talked to a VOA officer here a couple of times - both times they visited me - and on both cases I found them very helpful. The first case was similar to yours - I was applying for a rebanding having moved in (where I was trying to get a double banding collapsed to a single banding).

After the inspection the VOA officer (and I've since learned he was the chief guy at our VOA office) told me straight that he'd be recommending remaining as is, and then gave me clear reasons why - along with some guidance on when and how I might succeed (couched in the theoretical - he didn't want to actually tell me how to reduce my council tax).

Given his explanations, and some subsequent research on the internet on the back of what he told me I concluded that I would struggle to win on appeal, so I backed down.

IIRC, the key is the value your property as it is now would have been at some date in the past (quite a while ago in England I think - much more recent in Wales). So, I'd have thought if you can provide evidence that the property as it is now would have cost too little whenever that date was to be in the band they're proposing whenever that date was. But IANAL!

[Adrian]

Briefly. The letter giving the result of that first appeal seems to have gone missing, so they're re-sending it - apparently, it includes plenty of detail as to their logic.

Interesting.

1991, so definitely a bit of guesswork involved. As I said, in 1998 our place was sold for just under half the 1998 sale price of next door - yet we're now a band higher. OK, that's confused by our extension, but there's no way it'd have more than doubled the theoretical value of the place. I'd expect next door to sell tomorrow for MUCH more than here.

[Broadback]

You cannot win, the council are always right, unless it is Stoke on Trent of course, they are always wrong. ;-))

[Clive Page]

We appealed against our council tax banding in the 1990s when we'd just moved in and not long after the system was set up. We couldn't find another house at all similar to ours in our road or the next but we managed to find several fairly similar that were not too far away, all of which were one band lower. We went along to the hearing in the local town hall and presented our evidence. The chairman said that the houses weren't all that similar to ours, which was true, but eventually concluded that we had more or less proved our case. He seemed to be inclined slightly in our favour, simply because we'd taken the trouble to assemble the evidence and turn up and speak to it. So we went down one band, which over the years has been quite useful. You have not much to lose, except your time, so I'd say definitely worth appealing.

[Peter Crosland]

You need a professional to represent you. When I made an appeal I used a specialist surveyor (FRICS) recommended by my solicitor. The fee was reasonable and worth every penny. It paid for itself after 18 months. Nothing is guaranteed but worth a try.

[Adrian]

Banding's nothing to do with the council...

[Jim K]

mind for somebody who posts on UK.D-I-Y you do like using your proefeshunals don't you? usually surveyors IIRC.... - is that what you were/are?

Jim K

[bert]

Or Cheshire East who can be even more wrong than Stoke. They don't even bother to apply to themselves for planning permission to build a waste recycling plant - and then totally ignore the budget. But I am sure the lessons will be learnt as they move forward.

[Adrian]

They've sent through the comparison properties they used - except they've got our place as 204m2, whereas the estate agent details said 144m2!

[tim.....]

EA details can't be relied upon

do your own calcs

[Adrian]

True, but they have at least been round and measured the place - which is one up on the VOA!

[fred]

Check the VOA methods, they may use the outside dims (total area including walls) for simplicity, that rings a bell somewhere.

Watch out for factual errors too, in the old days of RVs, at my dad's, they wanted to include a car port bounded by 2 walls and a hedge as a garage, thereby increasing the RV, when the rules say 3 solid walls are required to make one. Had to go to tribunal to get that overruled.

[Piers]

Given what you've say, one struggles to believe that they could possibly win at appeal without visiting the property first.

My general take of things like VOA and planning permission appeals is that they are generally run pretty professionally, thoroughly and impartially (although with strong reliance on law rather than necessarily common sense). If the VOA don't even visit your properly and you yourself are able to provide lots of evidence of why your property is more comparable to lower bandings then they're toast.

(When I dealt with the VOA they made sketched plans of my property, did measurements, etc.)

What I'd probably be doing (once you've measured and configured your figures) is trying to make contact with the head of your VOA office - either in person, by phone or letter - and explaining the circumstances. And then if they ignore you, well, appeal.

[David P]

VOA always used to use external measurements for RV and I assume they still do for CT - don't forget for houses its not just the footprint of the building you are measuring and loft conversions/dormers will also need to be measured.

Have you had a look at

may give you some help.

David

[Adrian]

Oh, it gets better - the house isn't even visible from the road.

[Adrian]

And now that we've got the details through from the VOA, we're going no further. Turns out next door _is_ lower band than us, yes, but only because they also pay business rates on the land, as well as Band A for each of two rental annexes.

In addition, this place was sold for just £5k below the band-split threshold, sans the extension, and only two months after the nominal value date. With that in mind, there's not a lot of room for argument that we're now in anything but the right place.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.