Council Tax rebanding- off to tribunal

A question about : Council Tax rebanding- off to tribunal

Hi all, can anyone out there help with this:-
We bought a new build which was advertised and sold as a band C property. After a few months the council raised it to a band D. After several letters and e-mails, there is still no satisfactory outcome ( they refuse to reduce, we refuse to accept their excuses) so we are off to a tribunal.
Has anyone been to a tribunal, what should I expect? how should I prepare, what do I need to know?
Any advice is gratefully received.
cheers

Best answers:

• Hi OP,
  Yes I have been to and won a tribunal as well as helping my neighbours with their tribunals as mine wasn't seen as a precedent - so they appealed off the back of mine until they all won a reband too.
  The best advice I can give you is to know your stuff, research your case and don't stress out.
  The first point I would make is with regard to the reband. If a house was advertised in one band but then raised once sold, that is normally because there has been work done on that house which the VOA believes moves the property into the next band up. Has the house you have moved to had work done to it? NB: the band does not change at the time of the completion of work but when the house changes hands.
  If the answer to the above is no, Then I'd want an answer as to why the house had been rebanded.
  If the answer is yes, then the next thing you need to ask is why this tips your house price over. Look at other similar houses and investigate their band. Sometimes on the VOA website there's a symbol (from memory it used to be a little blue i in a circle or something similar) and this indicates that a house reband has been suggested in the event of a sale. So if your house is an E and a similar house is a D, does it look like the D is likely to be rebanded.
  Collate your evidence and try to get several items rather than a single house that could be an outlier. The more you can put together, the better. Also, know what is admissible and what isn't, there are guidelines on the relevant websites.
  Also, make copies of what you are going to present. I'd suggest taking one for you, one for the VOA valuer and three copies for the panel at least. If you can signpost your case, then do so, it will help show that your argument is coherent and well thought out.
  Places that you can find house price evidence:
  recent like for like from house price sales databases
  banding evidence from the VOA website
  actual prices from 1991-1993 (if in England) from newspaper archives in local libraries
  information on tribunals can be found on the VTS website
  Hope this helps. Good luck.
• Hi vivatifosi,
  Thanks for the reply. the house is a new build so we are the first owners, so it would be interesting to find out why, living in Wales I think the values are based on 2005 prices not 1991-93. What kind of evidence did you present?
• Apologies for delay...
  What have they told you the reasons are? I don't know how things work in Wales but I would be inclined to look for other new build sites of a similar price in the local area, ideally that were new in 2005.
  For my valuation, I put together a spreadsheet of all of the houses on the estate and the bands that they were in (some the same as mine were in D, others in E).
  I also identifed two estates that were built around the time and got sales evidence from the local paper as to selling prices from the time of reval (you wouldn't need to do this as the online databases cover the period you are looking at). I showed that these were all D and achieved a similar price and were a similar size (from online particulars, copies of which I also downloaded and added in appendix.
• What were the VOA's reasons for the increase? (It's the VOA who deal with banding, not the council).
• Hey, thanks for the advice vivatifosi, sounds like I've some homework to do. The tribunal is on the 9th October, will post outcome.
  To be honest lincroft 1710 I cannot the remember the reason they increased it, better find out before hand !!!
  Thanks again for the help and advice guys. Any more advice or help is always appreciated
  Wish me luck......
• Yes, you have. But first and foremost be 100% certain as to why they increased it. It's that reason which you will have to build your case against.