How long can council fob me off about banding?

A question about : How long can council fob me off about banding?

I moved into my house 18 years ago and after about 5 years a neighbour pointed out that about a third of the houses in the street were in the lower band, and my house should be too.
My house is original to the build in the 1930s ( no attic or garage conversion, no extension) and has one of the smallest gardens. We bought it in 1997 for Ј169000.
I rang the council and the guy said no I was in the right band, the others were too low and would be moved up. About 3 years later I checked again and nothing had changed. So I rang again and got the same story. He said I could write in but nothing would change it so basically don't bother.
As I say it has now been 18 years and guess what? Those other houses are still paying F band while I pay G. Is there a time limit on how long the council can insist the others are in the wrong band and yet do nothing about it?

Best answers:

• Perhaps if you speak to the VOA or the Assessor in Scotland, you may get an answer. Councils have nothing to do with the Council Tax banding.
  If you have spoken to the VOA, you may need to put your request in writing and get a written reply to take things further
• a quick google search over the "many years" would have revealed that council tax banding is dealt with via the valuations agency not your council. In fact this very site has an in depth guide as to how to challenge council tax banding.
  You seem to be trying to shift the "blame" to an organisation that doesn't even deal with this however to be honest it sounds like you haven't gone through the correct procedures yourself to challenge your banding.
• Apologies, I mean the VOA. As I said I last spoke to them years ago, so in my head I'm thinking council tax = council. It was the VOA I spoke to before, and they were the ones who kept fobbing me off.
• Ј169K in 1997, would probably have been a similar amount in 1991. Only just into Band G, so the VOA most likely didn't want to increase the bands of the other houses, as there had been a directive from Head Office, not to increase bands where 1991 value was only just into the new band.