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Valuation Tribunals and CTRS appeals
I attended an appeal today at the Valuation Tribunal purely to remind myself of these before Council Tax Benefit (as was) appeals are transferred.
There has been much suggestion by other bodies that these are not the place for Social Security appeals (whatever the name) and I fully agree…especially having witnessed today. No lawyer of course, papers being passed over to the Chair in the middle of the hearing (at least he had the decency to ask the appellant if he wanted a “minute or two” to study this new pack)...compared to a Tribunal hearing there were so many issues that would be deemed an error of law. I lost count.
To be fair, the panel members are volunteers. Oh and no expenses for claimants to attend.
No idea if welfare rights are used to these…..
hpinfopeter
I sat as a member of the Valuation Tribunal many years ago and at that time there were many things that happened that would amount to an error of law. My own experience is that they try to get the Valuation Officer and the appellant to agree where ever possible. I think that Valuation Tribunals will find us difficult rather than Welfare Rights Officers finding them difficult!!!
They sound similar to the old ‘Housing Beenfit Review Boards’
I once spent two days running a course for members of a housing review board and the relevant officers.
It finished with a role-played board. After all the bits we done about evidence, recording, applying the law etc. the chairman opened the deliberations by saying, “We pay our officers really well, I’m sure they know what they’re doing”.
Gareth
I have no amusing stories about HBRB but I once represented a client where the authority had two presenting officers!!! The Chairman raised this as an issue and I explained that there was no statutory requirement that the authority only has one presenting officer (Interpretation Act) but procedure was for the Chairman and I had no objections - the authority lost the case.
BTW when do we see an app?
Shabir
An app for what?
Maybe a silly question:
Am I right to think there is no time limit on when to start an “appeal” about the amount of CTax Reduction?
Seems that the procedure is:
1. raise a grievance about CTR award, about any prior award
2. apply to the Valuation Tribunal within two months of an unsatisfactory response, or if no response received then within 4 months of your grievance
If there is no time limit for the initial grievance, then presumably you can get round a missed two month deadline by simply starting another grievance?
I’m looking at the unamended Local Govt Finance Act, and the valuation tribunal site. There is nothing special stipulated in our local scheme about appeal time limits.
If the above is correct, I can envisage cases where we don’t bother to raise a CT grievance when we have a HB appeal proceeding on the same issue, and we just ask for the CT decision to follow HB whenever it’s decided.
I think you’re right in your analysis. I was reading up on it the other day.
I suspect that in practise most LA’s will do exactly that- where there is an HB dispute and a knock-on CTR dispute they will let the HB appeal run its course and then follow suite with the CTR.
It does open up some interesting scenarios though. Leaving aside a VT’s ability to cope with, for example, a messy cohab or complex capital appeal, in theory at least there’s the possibility of a FTT reaching one conclusion and a VT coming to the opposite conclusion on the same evidence. If that happens, which decision takes precedence?
It does open up some interesting scenarios though. Leaving aside a VT’s ability to cope with, for example, a messy cohab or complex capital appeal, in theory at least there’s the possibility of a FTT reaching one conclusion and a VT coming to the opposite conclusion on the same evidence. If that happens, which decision takes precedence?
And consider the administrative nightmare (for all parties) where there are HB and local CT scheme appeals on the same issue (assuming that all clients / advisers will always appeal both decisions!) with seperate deadlines and procedures. I also wonder how TS will deal with this as, presumably, appeals from both schemes will be listed by them for hearing. What possibility of requesting a joint hearing!?
I have had a very brief discussion with councils about this who are still trying to work out the implications and what they might do in practice.
I have had the ‘pleasure’ of representing at HBRBs - they were often appalling with the clerk to the board (usually one of the council’s solicitors) effectively running the hearing and advising the board what decision they should make!
What goes around, comes around - Oh happy days!
Yes that is all correct in principle; but the wording of the local scheme will be all important. Plus the prescribed regs…
For instance, it appears DCLG just followed the UC process for PFA claims and not the current CTB rules (without realising the impact). The result is that some claimants excluded from HB and CTB at the moment will suddenly be entitled to help with Council Tax from April 2013.
There are apparently numerous errors and ommissions between the DCLG default/prescribed schemes and CTB…I am sure WR advisers will find plenty in time. Also that whilst DHP’s are not appeallable, there is a general power of discretion under CTRS that is certainly appeallable to VT’s.
Some of the bills about to go out in the next few days to claimants currently entitled to 100% are simply massive…..many hundreds of pounds. My guess (expectation) is that advice agencies will be flooded with worried people clutching demands.
With all the “bedroom tax” excitement, easy to forget about CTRS.
Here is a sample from an outer London borough showing the impact of the CT
bills going out now:
Cases losing £30+ per week = 5
Cases losing between £20 and £30 per week = 14
Cases losing between £10 and £20 = 492
Cases losing between £5 and £10 = 396
Cases losing between £0.01 and £5 = 11,188
In addition, 27 CTS cases have lost support of £1000 or more for the year.