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Martin Lewis explains easy way people can ‘check and challenge’ their council tax band
The Independent
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6/26/2024
Martin Lewis explains easy way people can check and challenge their council tax bandSource: Good Morning Britain, ITV
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News
Transcript
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00:00
What can people do about council tax?
00:02
Well, you can absolutely. I've got some graphics over there.
00:04
I'm going to show you how you do the check and challenge over here.
00:07
So, look, there are two checks everybody should do
00:10
on their council tax band.
00:11
Now, these are my way of devising it,
00:14
so it's not an official system, but this is for safety.
00:17
The first thing is the neighbours check.
00:19
So you find a similar or preferably identical property
00:22
in your street and you check your council tax band compared to theirs.
00:26
Don't worry, you don't have to get in touch with the neighbours.
00:28
You can see all council tax bands, gov.uk for England
00:32
and saa.gov.uk for Scotland.
00:34
Check your council tax band, check your neighbour's council tax band.
00:37
If you are in a higher band than an identical property,
00:41
that's your first tick, the neighbours tick.
00:43
Now, you should always do the second check,
00:46
which is one I came up with back in 2007.
00:48
Still the most watched TV show I've ever done,
00:50
just over six million viewers.
00:52
What you have to do is you have to work out
00:55
what your property was worth in 1991.
00:57
Now, if you've bought it since then, you can back-convert
01:00
the price when you bought it to 1991 prices.
01:03
If you've not, find a similar property and back-convert that.
01:06
If this sounds difficult, don't worry.
01:08
There are free tools online for check and challenge,
01:10
which will do it for you.
01:11
Now, the reason I say do both,
01:13
if you are in a higher band than neighbours,
01:16
there is a chance all your neighbours are in too low a band.
01:19
And if you ask the list to be checked, their band will be put up,
01:22
which would not make you very popular.
01:24
You want your band to go down,
01:26
which is why the valuation check, while it's not evidential,
01:30
at least says if you pass both,
01:32
it's likely it's you who is in too high a band.
01:35
And you can go and look this up online.
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1:33
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