WIREDGOV

Explaining the process for challenging your Council Tax band and answering some common questions.

This time of year is particularly busy for the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), as customers get their annual Council Tax bill from their local council. We expect to see more than 10,000 extra Council Tax band challenges in the next 3 months alone.

This is why we’re answering some common questions about how Council Tax banding works and what to do if you think you’re in the wrong band.

We want to help you understand the process and get it right.

I’ve lived in my property for more than 6 months – can I still challenge my Council Tax band?

You may have heard that the VOA has a statutory role to maintain the Council Tax list. This is true – we want customers to be in the right Council Tax band.

But this doesn’t mean that everyone has a right to challenge their Council Tax band, or that we have a duty to look at every request we receive.

There are two types of Council Tax band challenge:

• proposals
• band reviews

Different rules apply for each type of challenge.

A proposal is a formal challenge. You can only make a proposal in certain circumstances, such as if you’ve been paying Council Tax on your property for less than 6 months. When you make a proposal, by law we must review your band.

A band review is an informal challenge. Anyone who has been paying Council Tax on their property for more than 6 months can request a band review, but the same legal rights don’t apply. We’ll only look at your case if you provide strong evidence which suggests your band is wrong.

This helps us to focus on cases that are most likely to result in a change and allows us to deal with cases quicker.

Challenges can result in your band going up, down or staying the same. If your property is already in band A, we can’t reduce it any further. But it could increase if you choose to challenge it.

Learn more about challenges and evidence.

Can I use house price calculators as evidence?

We don’t consider average house price information from online calculators as strong evidence if you challenge your Council Tax band.

Popular house price calculators – like Nationwide House Price Index, Nethouseprices, Rightmove and Zoopla – offer estimate property valuations. But these tools can be unreliable when it comes to the information we need to review your Council Tax band.

The data they use is broad and often not specific to particular locations. This means they don’t give an accurate estimate of the open market value of a property around the valuation date (1991 in England and 2003 in Wales), which is what we’re looking for when banding a property.

Do I need to tell my council if I think my Council Tax band is wrong?

No. Your local council uses Council Tax bands to work out your Council Tax bill.

But they are not involved in banding decisions – that’s the job of the VOA.

Do I need to write to you to challenge my Council Tax band?

We review cases we receive in date order, no matter how customers send them to us.

You can submit a proposal or band review by phone, email, letter or using our online service.

If you’re submitting a proposal, you can also use our online form.

Whichever way you choose to submit your proposal or band review, we’ll review your evidence and contact you with the next steps.

Currently, you can expect to wait up to a month for us to look at your evidence and confirm whether we will review your band.

My neighbour’s property is bigger than mine – should we be in the same band?

Differences in size don’t always lead to different bands. There are a few reasons for this.

First, it’s important to remember that Council Tax bands cover a range of properties. This means properties of different values will be given the same band.

For example, band D in England will be given to properties which would have sold for £68,001 to £88,000 on 1 April 1991. So even if a bigger property is valued higher than yours, they may both be in the same band.

Sometimes, a property may be bigger because of an extension or other improvements. When this happens, legally we must wait until the property has been sold before we can review the band. This means that even if the changes are enough to trigger a band increase, the band will stay the same until the property is sold.

Our blog sets out more information on how home improvements affect your Council Tax band.

Size is just one factor we consider when we value properties. Location, age, layout and character also play a role in determining a property’s band.

My property was built after the 1991/2003 valuation date – does this mean the band will be wrong?

Your Council Tax band is based on the price your property could have been sold for on a fixed date. This date is called the antecedent valuation date (AVD). It’s 1 April 1991 in England and 1 April 2003 in Wales.

When we band a property for Council Tax, our starting point is to look for sales of the property that took place on or around the AVD.

If your property was built after the AVD, we look for sales data on properties that were new around that time, as well as the bands of similar properties.

Read more about how new properties are valued for Council Tax.