If you suspect you might be on too high of a council tax band, you may be able to challenge it and lower your bills going forward
Hundreds of thousands of households have been urged to check if they’re owed money back from overpaid council tax. Martin Lewis has explained how you may be accidentally in the wrong council tax band.
Your council tax band is based on what the value of your property would have been in 1991, and is set into bands from A to H. But thousands of people are on too high of a band, which means they have been overpaying their council tax.
In a recent post on X, Martin Lewis said: “It really is quite unbelievable that if you live in England and Scotland the council tax band you are in today is still dictated by a stopgap drive-by valuation done back in 1991 that was only meant to last a couple of years.
He added: “Up to 400,000 homes are in the wrong band. And if you’re in the wrong band and you challenge it not only can you get it lowered, you can get a backdated payout back to when you moved in, or 1991, whichever was sooner.”
If you suspect you might be on too high of a council tax band, you may be able to challenge it. If successful, you could be owed money back from your council and you’ll have lower bill going forward.
But make sure you do your research first – if it turns out you’re on too low of a council tax, your bills can go up and this could also impact your neighbours.
First of all, you need to know your council tax band. You should be able to find this on a recent council tax bill letter, or on GOV.UK or the Scottish Assessors Association website.
Next, compare your council tax band against your neighbours – you can also do this online if you’re not on friendly terms with your neighbours.
You should compare homes of similar sizes and value – but again, keep in mind that it could be your whole street has been paying too little council tax.
Before going ahead with a challenge, you should also work out how much your property was worth in 1991. MoneySavingExpert has a free calculator tool to help you do this.
Once you’ve done these checks, if you think you’ve got a good case on your hands and you want to challenge your council tax band, you can contact the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) in England and Wales, or the SAA in Scotland.
If you are successful, the valuation office will contact you and the band will be changed – and you’ll be due money back. You can appeal to an independent valuation tribunal if you’re not happy with the decision.
Most local authorities increased council tax by 5% this April, taking the average band D bill to £2,280 a year.