How to spot a wrong council tax band in five minutes

The simplest signal that your council tax band is wrong is also the most reliable: your neighbours pay less for an identical home.

Start by walking down your street mentally. Picture the houses that are visibly the same as yours — same size, same era, same number of bedrooms, same property type. If you live in a terrace, the neighbours either side are usually a perfect comparison. If you live in a 1970s estate semi, every other 1970s estate semi within a few streets is fair game.

Now look up their bands. The VOA publishes every band publicly. If you're a Band D and four out of five identical neighbours are Band C, the burden of proof is on the assessment, not on you.

TaxBandAppeal does this comparison automatically — but the underlying logic is the same. The point is that the original 1991 valuations were done in bulk. Where a street was correctly banded, every comparable home will line up. Where a street was bulk-banded incorrectly, you'll see one or two outliers — and one of them might be yours.