Money Talk: ‘My neighbor pays less council tax than me – should mine be lower?’

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If you’ve noticed that your neighbor is in a lower council tax bracket compared to you, you may be wondering if your property has been misclassified. You might consider contesting this to lower your bills

Council tax is an annual fee your municipality pays for the services it provides, such as garbage collection, schools, and roads.

Each property has a different council tax banding that determines how much you pay.

In England and Scotland, houses are locations in bands from A to H, or in Wales they go from A to I.

How the Council decides what band your property fits into can be confusing – the value is based on the price your house would have sold on the open market on 1 April 1991 in England and Scotland.

For property in Wales it is based on 1 April 2003 prices,

Since these prices are from 20 to 30 years ago, properties today can accidentally be placed in the wrong tax bracket.

How to challenge your council tax gang

If you’ve noticed that your neighbor is in a lower council tax bracket compared to you, you may be wondering if your property has been misclassified.

There may be a reason for this – for example if you are in a larger property – or it could mean that you are actually in too high a band.

Have you successfully reduced your council tax margin? Let us know: levi.winchester@reachplc.com

If this is the case, you might consider contesting your council tax.

If you do that – that is, move your ownership down a notch – you could owe a refund worth thousands of pounds for the years you overpaid.

You will also see your bills decrease in the future.

But a word of warning first – you need to do your research before starting a council tax ribbon challenge.

If it turns out you’re actually in too low a council tax range, you’ll end up paying more – and your neighbors could be ramped up, too.

The first step is to see what council tax bracket all of your neighbors are in – make sure you’re looking at similar property sizes so you can compare like-for-like.

You can check advice tapes online for free via the Gov.uk website or the Scottish Assessors Association for property in Scotland.

Next, you need to work out how much your property was worth in 1991, which is when council tax was introduced.

savings expert has a free calculator tool to help you with this, as well as a table of which volume you should have been in.

Once you’ve done these checks, you can contact the if you think you’ve got a good case on your hands Evaluation Bureau Agency (VOA) in England and Wales.

If you are based in Scotland you need to contact them Scottish Surveyors Association (SAA) to submit your challenge.

If successful, the appraisal office will contact you and the band will be changed – and you will get your money back.

You can appeal to an independent jury if you are not happy with the decision.