Thursday 22 August 2013

Odd sales calls about council tax

An L19 resident was in touch recently about an odd phone call he received about his Council Tax.

Apparently a company has been cold calling some people telling them that their property is in the wrong council tax band so they might be due a refund.

The company then asks the resident to sign a contract which involves paying a fee and then a percentage of any refund won.  The company's part of the deal is to try to get the refund.

Now there's nothing illegal in any of this, as long as cool off periods are respected etc, but the resident was concerned it might be a scam.

The facts are that anyone who thinks their property might be in the wrong Council Tax band can get it looked at free of charge by the Valuation Agency, the Government body that does the banding (NB the Council does not decide bands)

If you want to get your banding checked, you can contact the agency at   http://www.voa.gov.uk/

The agency also has an office on Church Street in Liverpool.

1 comment:

Jan Clein said...

People should also be warned that they can put Council Tax Bands UP as well as down. They should check out what their neighbours bands are before any contact with VOA is made. Put your post code in this search to find out what other properties in your street are banded at.

http://www.voa.gov.uk/cti/InitS.asp?lcn=0