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Are you in the right council tax band?

Vicky Parry 24th Apr 2023 No Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutes

When council tax originally began to be set up back in 1991, the system struggled to get the data of every single home in the UK correctly entered. To this day, many homes are thus in the wrong council tax band.

Pay less and backdate your claim!

With a quick check, you can possibly get your council tax banding decreased by up to a few hundred pounds a year, and it can also be backdated to when you started living at your property: even way back to 1993 when council tax started to be paid!

How to find out your council tax band

Find out the Council Tax band for a home in England or Wales by looking up its address or postcode. For homes in Scotland, search on the Scottish Assessors website.

You can also use this service to challenge your Council Tax band if you think it’s wrong. You’ll need to provide evidence for your challenge. Start now on the Council Tax valuation list.

It’s well worth considering a few more factors, so first of all:

Investigate the houses in your area

Asking a neighbour is probably the quickest way to determine what band you’re supposed to be in. A sure sign that your band is incorrect is if people in your area are paying a different amount of council tax to you.

BUT do be aware that this investigation COULD lead to your council tax going up, or in very rare cases the band for your whole area being increased: this is after all a reassessment, not a guarantee of you paying less council tax.

So do some research first:

Property Values

If you have owned your property after 1991, just use the date of the sale and price paid: if you rent your property or bought it earlier, than this, you’ll have to get an estimated price. TIP: also try this process with neighbouring properties similar to yours, to see where yours compares.

Try using Rightmove, Zoopla or Nethouseprices to get fast results: just put in your street name and it’ll let you know the price of every property sold there since 2000.

You can then use this information to estimate what your property would’ve been worth back in 1991, and what band it’s in by using the Nationwide Calculator to determine all the house prices you’re after.