Yahoo News The London boroughs where you're most likely to get council tax reduced named
Over a thousand households in London successfully got their council tax bills reduced - but it’s not without risk. People who think that their home may be in the wrong council tax band can make an appeal to have it changed.
Taxpayers can make an appeal to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) who will investigate the matter and inform the taxpayer of the outcome. Bands can go up as well as down though, so deciding to appeal your council tax band is a decision not to be taken lightly.
A total of 6,190 appeals were made to the VOA in Greater London between April 1 2023 and March 31 2024. More than two thirds of those (69%) saw the council tax band remain unchanged. Around one in six of them - a total of 1,050 cases - saw the council tax band get reduced.
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A total of almost 44,000 households across England and Wales made appeals to the VOA last year. Nearly a quarter - 10,530 - were successful in getting their council tax bands reduced. Not everyone was so lucky. Thirty households had their council tax bands increased.
Official figures don’t reveal where these homes were, except that around 10 were in the South East and another 10 in the South West. Some parts of the country have been more successful with their appeals than others.
Just over two-thirds (67%) of appeals in Rossendale and Rushmoor saw the council tax band get decreased.
Those are the joint highest rates in England and Wales.
In Wrexham, the ratio was 57%, while in seven areas, 50% of all appeals ended in a reduction - Halton, Stockport, Oadby and Wigston, Lincoln, Mansfield, Blaenau Gwent, and Merthyr Tydfil.
In Hounslow, however, just 5% - a total of 10 cases - saw the council tax band get decreased. In Leicester it was just 6% of cases, while in Barnet, Hillingdon, and Windsor and Maidenhead it was 7%.
London boroughs where the most households got their council tax reduced
Lambeth 90
Bromley 70
Croydon 70
Harrow 60
Bexley 50
Barnet 50
Enfield 40
Redbridge 40
Richmond 40
Wandsworth 30
Greenwich 30
Waltham Forest 30
Camden 30
Islington 30
Westminster 30
Haringey 30
Lewisham 30
Southwark 30
Havering 30
Merton 30
Kensington and Chelsea 30
Ealing 30
Tower Hamlets 20
Hammersmith and Fulham 20
Hackney 20
Sutton 20
Brent 20
Kingston 20
Newham 10
Hillingdon 10
Hounslow 10
