Money Back On House Banding

[michele]

Sorry folk....might be teaching some of you how to such eggs?.

Monday night there was a programme on TV Martin Lewis...Anyway don't quite know how to enter a web address so just type in the Google search Bar House Banding ......Martin Lewis Money Saver.......if you look you will see that there are people getting money back from their local Council the reason being is these Taxes are set by some cowboy Estate Agent who does not visit your house . He just drives down the street and bands them all the same..If you do a post code search you will see the nearest house to you and the tax band you should be in. Lot's of people are getting money back the system crashed last week.........Good Luck.

 

Would be nice to know how many try it ........£

[foxy]

Hi michelle

I followed all the links from the website and unfortunatley my abode is in the right band, so I`m still poor!

[michele]

Worth a try though ..................I,m keeping stum..........should be a 4 bed from the outside now a 7 bed ....Although all done with the correct building approval and stamp of Authority... i wonder how long before they notice ?.......... ;-)

[foxy]

Did I not tell you I work for the local authority!

[michele]

yeah.............in yorkshire.........

[foxy]

Born next door in Kent though

[michele]

Be my guest............te he..........It couldn't go up much it's already high...

[peteS]

Already in the bottom band cos were poor.

[Guest starspirit]

Just wait until they start classing a large A class or US RV and an extra bedroom and increasing your council tax by a band for the priviledge!

[colin]

I don't understand why it's taken so long for the media to catch up with this one, when it was first introduced I had a 2 year battle to get mine reduced from G to F ( tried for a C but that was pushing it a bit), most of a vilage close to me put in a group complaint and they where rebanded at same time. The whole system is a c0ck up because maggie was afraid of some students. I was very happy with the poll tax.

[michele]

So ddid you get yours back Colin?.. i take it you did . Apparently the site crashed from over use last week and they are said to be paying out fortunes..............Someone on here might get lucky worth a few minutes of their time ..

[Keith T]

michele - 2007-02-06 7:35 PM

 

Apparently the site crashed from over use last week and they are said to be paying out fortunes..............Someone on here might get lucky worth a few minutes of their time ..

 

I tries several times after the TV programme and also an article in the Daily Telegraph giving the 'full instructions'......always found unable to access the site, due to I guess 'higher volumes than expected' ....... I must try again perhaps it's calmed down a bit now.

[michele]

It was working yesterday. Good Luck.

[mark lambert]

I bet their all going to be re-banded anyway, whoever wins the next election. i think the bands were taken from 1991 house prices ? i bet houses are worth at least treble that price now, and i'm sure that they will see how much they (govt)have had to pay us back, and put the rates up to recoup it all. I wonder

[GJH]

This came up on another forum a few days ago so it might be worth repating what I replied there.

 

I remember the advent of Council Tax well because I was one of the team which produced what was adopted by the government as the national specification for Council Tax computer systems. As a result I have no hesitation in saying that lot of what is said about Council Tax bandings is misinformed.

 

One of the problems with the old Rates system (pre Community Charge) was that the property valuations were based on notional rental values and were susceptible to becoming inaccurate, relative to one another, over time.

 

Council Tax valuations are based on the market value of a property and the width of the bandings is such that, however the market moves, the relative worth of the properties tends to stay the same.

 

Our house (as with the vast majority of our neighbours) is band C and was rightfully placed there in 1991. Nowadays it in the 1991 price range for band G - but, of course, any property that was band G in 1991 is probably relatively so much more expensive as well.

 

In such a situation, common to many (most?) of the housing estates in the country, the only significant differences arise where a house is unlike the ones around it. The property across the road from us used to be a shop with flat above. A few years ago it was converted into a dwelling which is larger than any of its neighbours and, consequently, more valuable - and so it is in band D.

 

Any revaluation which takes place will probably be largely cosmetic (and expensive) to make it appear that the government is doing something about local taxation - though there are likely to be some situations, probably at the margins of the bands, where blocks of property move up or down because a particular area/suburb has increased/decreased in value relative to the rest of the town it happens to be in.

 

Graham