How to challenge your council tax band

For a home in England or Wales, you challenge the band with the Valuation Office, using the online service on GOV.UK, whether or not you have a legal right to challenge. In Scotland, the challenge goes to an assessor based in your local Valuation Joint Board or council, listed on the Scottish Assessors Association website. What follows is the GOV.UK guide for England and Wales, in short.

You must continue paying council tax while your challenge is being reviewed.

Two kinds of challenge

GOV.UK distinguishes between a challenge you have a legal right to make, known as “making a proposal”, and a request to review a band you think is wrong when you have no such right, known as a “band review”.

When you have a legal right to challenge

You have a legal right to challenge your band if you think it is wrong and either:

• you have been paying council tax on your property for less than 6 months;
• the Valuation Office has changed your band in the last 6 months.

You also have that right if there has been a change that affects the property, if you want to remove the property from the council tax list, or if you want to add it to the list. A change that affects the value can be a change to the property (split into several properties or merged into one), to its use (part of it now used for business), or to the local area (for example a new supermarket or main road).

A property can be removed from the list if it has been demolished, if it is derelict or in a state of serious disrepair with a number of serious structural problems, if it is undergoing major renovation affecting all or most of it, or if it is now used as a business and no longer counts as a domestic property. GOV.UK states that a property cannot be removed just because it is in “poor repair”.

When you do not have a legal right to challenge

You can ask for a band review if you have been paying council tax for more than 6 months, there have been no recent changes to the property, and you think the band is wrong. You will need evidence.

The evidence the Valuation Office asks for

For a band review, GOV.UK asks for the addresses of up to 5 similar properties in a lower band than yours. They should be the same as yours in type, size (number of bedrooms and total area), age, and style and design, and be in the same street or estate in a town or city, or in the same village or area in the countryside.

You can also use what your property or similar ones sold for, if the sales took place:

• between 1 April 1989 and 31 March 1993, for a property in England;
• between 1 April 2001 and 31 March 2005, for a property in Wales.

Those prices are compared with the value range of each band: in England, values on 1 April 1991; in Wales, values on 1 April 2003.

In the table, a range given as two amounts means more than the first and up to the second. If the sale prices fall outside your band, you can give the addresses, the prices and the dates of sale; GOV.UK notes that the closer a sale is to the valuation date, the more likely it is that the Valuation Office can use it. It adds that the Valuation Office will not consider average house price information from property websites as strong evidence.

Information to give

With any challenge you give your name, the address of the property, the date from which you want to make the proposal, and whether you are the homeowner or a tenant. If you propose a new band because of a change, describe the change. If you are a new taxpayer who has been in the property for less than 6 months, give the date you became a council tax payer.

Someone else can challenge on your behalf if you appoint them as your representative with an “Authority to act” form; they then use the Council Tax challenge form, not the online service. To ask for a property to be removed from the list, GOV.UK also asks for the challenge form.

How long it takes

Step	Time given by GOV.UK
Valuation Office confirms it has your challenge	usually within a few days, sometimes up to 28 days
Decision when you had a legal right to challenge	up to 4 months
Decision on a band review	up to 12 months

At the end, the Valuation Office changes the band and tells your council, which revises your bill and pays any refund due; or removes the property from the list; or adds it with a new band; or tells you why the band cannot be changed.

If you disagree with the decision

You can only appeal if you had a legal right to challenge. Appeals go to the Valuation Tribunal England or the Valuation Tribunal for Wales, which are independent of the Valuation Office. Appealing is free, but you pay your own costs, such as travel. You normally need to appeal within:

• 3 months of getting the decision, in England;
• 4 months of getting the decision, in Wales.

The time limit may be extended in some circumstances; you explain why on the appeal form.

A wrong bill is a different matter

If the band is right but you think the bill is wrong (the home should not be charged, the bill goes to the wrong person, the amount is wrong, or a discount or exemption is missing), you write to your council, not to the Valuation Office. According to the separate GOV.UK guide on council tax appeals, which does not say whether it covers Wales, the council has 2 months to reply. GOV.UK states that you cannot appeal just because you think your bill is too expensive. If you disagree with the council's decision, you can appeal to the Valuation Tribunal within 2 months of the decision, or within 4 months of first writing to the council if you have had no reply.

The rules for Scotland are not covered by the sources used on this page: see mygov.scot and the Scottish Assessors website.