Was your house overvalued as Council Tax came in? You could get backpayment!

- Search: Claim back your council tax
- AOL Money Tax

Getting money back from your council may seem like getting the proverbial blood out of a stone. But council tax cashbacks are catching on, and you could be due thousands of pounds from a decade of overpayments.

If you can prove you have been in the wrong council tax band, the council is obliged to pay you back any overpayments. And here is the good bit - it could be backdated to when the council tax system was introduced.

Why have so many people overpaid on council tax?

Council Tax bills are split up into bands based on the value of the property, but most of these valuations were done way back in 1991 and have not been updated since.

To make matters worse, many of the valuations done back in 1991 were rushed jobs done by estate agents who rarely saw the properties in question and never went inside them.

Since these valuations were frequently 'guestimates', the bands that homeowners found themselves were frequently inappropriate to the real value of their property.

If the council tax band you were put in was linked to a valuation on your property that was too high, then in the following years you would be paying over the odds for all your local services, and therefore would qualify for a backdated repayment.

The question is, how do you work out what band you are in and then establish whether it is the right band for your property?

You can check your council tax band by looking at the last statement sent to you from your local borough council. But it might be easier to check online, as you can also check what council tax band your neighbours are in. If they are in similar properties but in different tax bands, you will probably want to know why.

Check your tax band by visiting the Valuation Office Agency - you can also get the tax bands for your neighbours too.

You then need to get an accurate idea of what your house, and the houses on your road are being sold for currently, you can do this with Hometrack's Check House Prices in Your Area tool (right).

You will also need this figure to establish what properties in your road were worth back in 1991, when the council tax bands were set.

The fun bit: Do the maths

When you have established the current valuation from Hometrack, visit the Nationwide House Price Calculator.

In the 'Property Value' field, enter the sales price of the house recently sold in your street. Then in the 'Valuation Date 1' field, enter the date of that sale and in which quarter it was.

In the 'Valuation Date 2' field, enter 1991, and Q2. The calculator should give you a valuation of what your property was worth back in 1991, and therefore which Council Tax band you should have been placed in at that time.

If the value is:
under £40k you should be in band A;
if it's £40k-£52k it's band B;
£52k-£68k band C;
£68k-£88k band D;
£88k-£120k band E;
£120k-£160k band F;
£160k-£320k band G
and over £320k band H.

You should now be able to tell if the council tax band you are in matches with the real value that your house was back in 1991.

If it doesn't, and you are in a higher band than you should be. You should immediately contact the Local Listing Officer - once again the address of the officer for your area can be found at www.voa.gov.uk.

Of course the band calculation is not going to be wrong in every case. In fact, you might find that you should have been placed in a higher band and therefore should have been paying a higher annual tax.

Case Study
Cliff Jackson, from Maghull in Liverpool, recently made a claim after reading about how valuations in 1991 were - in many cases - sketchy to say the least.

"I didn't think I had necessarily overpaid, but it wasn't going to cost me anything to find out, so I did. I discovered that my house in 1991 would have been worth £60k and therefore band C; when in actual fact it was valued at £70k and placed in band D.

"The Liverpool valuation office agreed with me and I was reimbursed for what I had overpaid. I got a cheque for £1,500 in a matter of weeks, which is not bad for a few minutes on the internet and a phone call!"

- AOL Money Mortgages & Homes
- AOL Money Consumer Corner