Council Tax Rebanding – How do I work out my Council Tax band?

Council Tax Rebanding – How do I work out my Council Tax band?

There is no denying that times are tough right now, and one constant in the never-ending stream of outgoings and bills that land on our doorstep is council tax. But what many homeowners fail to consider when it comes to council tax is their “tax bracket”, and whether they have been allocated into the correct one.

You may unwittingly be over-paying on your council tax because you are in the wrong band, making you eligible for a tax rebate and adjustment into the suitable council tax category, reducing your monthly outgoings.

How much council tax you pay depends on your property's banding; a letter from A to H which depends on the value of your home in 1991. Individual councils then annually decide the amounts that should be payable for band B and D, with all the other bands then calculated proportionally. This means that the average council tax rate for each band varies between towns and cities, for example, you’re likely to pay more on council tax in London than you are in Nottingham due to the large difference in house prices.

Council tax was introduced in 1991 and because of this the prices do not reflect those of today.

This is what the council tax bands looked like at 1991 property value:

How can I find out how much my house is worth?

If you want to find out your current house price and compare it to the 1991 banding categories, you can try one of these websites in our list of helpful house price providers, here.

These websites will give you an insight on how much your property is worth based on recent house sales in the area, giving you a rough idea of what council tax band you should be in.

Once you have this information you can enter it into this calculator (http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/) and go by the following procedure:

A. Scroll down the page to the calculator

B. In ‘Property value' note the sales PRICE from earlier

C. In ‘Valuation date 1' enter the DATE OF SALE from earlier and the Q it was valued in.

D. In Valuation date 2' enter 1991, and Q2

E. Select your region from the drop down list

F. Click ‘calculate the results’

After you have done this a message like this will appear:

“A property located in North West which was valued at £170,000 in Q4 of 2007, would be worth approximately £59,608 in Q2 of 1991. This is equivalent to a change of -64.94%.”