Council tax payments rise from at present: How to problem YOUR band if you happen to suppose you pay an excessive amount of

Council tax is rising by an average of 4.9 per cent for households across England from today. 

This means the average council tax for a Band D home in England is increasing to £2,392 a year, up £111 on a year ago.  

Most councils have been allowed to hike council tax bills by up to 5 per cent, but seven have been given Government permission to plough ahead with larger increases in a bid to help solve their ‘challenging financial position.’ 

Residents in the Shropshire Council area will notice an unusually high increase in council tax, following Labour’s decision to allow the authority to increase bills by nearly 9 per cent. 

Some households, including those occupied by someone living on their own or with a disability, can get a discount, and in limited cases, an exemption from council tax.

But many households now face dealing with even higher council tax bills while grappling with surging fuel prices and high living costs. 

Now is a good time to scrutinise your council tax band, and challenge it if you think you have been lumbered in one which is incorrect. 

We explain how to work out if you might be in the wrong band, how to challenge it – and this pitfalls to avoid.  

How to tell if you’re in the wrong council tax band 

Council tax bands for homes in England were worked out in 1991, based on the property’s value at the time.

There has not been any formal review in more than 30 years, which means many homes could now find themselves in the wrong band.

‘An estimated 400,000 households in the UK may be in the wrong council tax band’, Scott Dixon, of The Complaints Resolver, told This is Money. 

He added: ‘Incorrect bands, often based on outdated 1991 property values, mean many pay too much, while others miss out on discounts for single occupancy, disabilities or student status.’   

In some cases, well-to-do homeowners in areas that have been transformed by gentrification since 1991 are paying far less proportionally than those in far smaller homes in less glamorous neighbourhoods elsewhere. 

The key tell-tale sign is if your council tax band is out of kilter with other properties of a similar size near where you live. 

There are two scenarios in which you can successfully challenge your council tax band. Either your neighbours have identical or similar properties to yours, but are in a lower council tax band.

Or alternatively, you may find you are in the same band as your neighbours but have a smaller property than theirs. 

In either of these scenarios, you should start by finding out what council tax band your neighbours’ homes are in to check if your concerns are correct.

You will want to make sure the homes you are comparing yours with sit on a similar amount of land, have a similar floor area and roughly the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms. 

How to challenge your council tax band  

As a starting point, work out if you can challenge the band formally or informally.

You do not need to appoint an agent to challenge your council tax band. You can save money by doing it yourself, although there is some legwork involved.

There are two types of review. The first is a formal one, which you can launch if you have been paying council tax on your home for less than six months, or if the Government’s Valuation Office Agency (VOA) has altered your band in the last six months and you disagree with it. In these cases, the VOA is legally obliged to review your band.

You may not be able to launch a formal appeal if you have lived in the home for too long.

Most people lodge an informal review, which means you will need strong supporting evidence to show that your council tax band is wrong. If you fail to provide adequate evidence, the VAO will reject the request.

What evidence do you need? 

The key to success is presenting the right evidence – think floor plans, photos and evidence of sale prices, and supporting your case with historic house price data. Try to include evidence from at least five comparable properties. 

The easiest way of getting a valuation on your home is by looking at websites like Rightmove and Zoopla to find how much it has been bought and sold for in the past.

If a property has been sold at any point since the early 2000s, it is likely to have an inactive listing page on Rightmove.

These are often still available to view and will usually include a floor plan, which is helpful for illustrating a home’s size, as well as its council tax band.

Often, it will also include historic information about the property’s price each time it has been sold, which may in some cases go back as far as 1991. If not, you can make an educated guess. 

You should use an online inflation calculator to calculate what your house would have been worth in 1991, using your current valuation.

‘Once you have this figure you’ll be able to see if you fit in the correct banding or if you need to be revalued’, Samuel Holgate, managing director at Swindon-based financial advisers Mather and Murray Financial, said.

He added: ‘Caution though, if you’re revalued you could go up a banding and pay more so only challenge if you’re certain of the outcome.’

You can also use the Land Registry to access publicly available data on historic sale prices for a small fee. 

How does the process work? 

Once you have all your evidence, you can use the government’s free online tool to formally submit your challenge if you are based in England or Wales at gov.uk/challenge-council-tax-band/how-to-challenge.

In England, after submitting your challenge you will receive a confirmation of receipt from the VOA, though this can take up to 28 days to come through. It will then take up to 12 months to get a decision.

If your case is rejected and your council tax band is not changed, you cannot appeal. But, you can start the process again if you unearth fresh evidence.

If think you are in the wrong band and your appeal is successful, you could save hundreds of pounds a year.

One in four applications to challenge council tax bands in England and Wales was successful in 2024. 

‘If you prove your case and have overpaid, seek a full refund for all overpayments without delay. It’s your money so don’t be fobbed off with any excuses’, Dixon said. 

Are there any risks involved?

If you decide to challenge your current council tax band, there is a chance you could be moved up a council tax band and have to pay even more council tax. This only happens in a very small number of cases. 

You are most at risk of this occurring if yours is the only property on your street with a lower council tax band, and live in a similar home to all your neighbours.

There is also a chance that your neighbours’ bands get increased while yours stays the same.

If you have presented evidence to show that your neighbours, whose homes are like yours, are all in a lower band than you, then they could simply increase everyone else’s bands rather than lowering yours.

When to avoid challenging your council tax band

Rachel Reeves has said that homes in bands F, G and H will be revalued and charged a mansion tax where homes are worth more than £2million.

But this means multi-million-pound homes in Band E will escape the mansion tax.

If you suspect your home is worth more than £2million and is in council tax band E, it is crucial that you do not appeal your band or you risk being slapped with the new mansion tax in the future.