Council Tax Support appeals leaflet
This explains what you need to do and what happens next if you decide to appeal against your Council Tax Support (CTS) decision. If you want to read more see our CTS appeals leaflet. The leaflet also covers Housing Benefit (HB) appeals, if you have combined HB and CTS claims. Housing Benefit appeals are different altogether to CTS appeals in time limits and who you can appeal to. For Housing Benefit appeals see HB appeals.
Disputing your Council Tax Support decision
If you disagree with an issue or issues that relate to your Council Tax Support, you are an aggrieved person. You must tell us in writing using our CTS appeals form about the issue or issues that you have concerning:
- our decision not to award CTS; or
- the amount of CTS we have awarded.
We cannot accept a telephone call as your grievance about your CTS. You cannot write to the independent Valuation Tribunal of England straight away.
There is no time limit to write to us, but if you have a combined Housing Benefit claim, and your issue is similar on both claims, ideally write to us within one month of the date of our decision.
Internal review of your Council Tax Support dispute letter
We must consider your written issue or issues within two months or receipt of your letter of dispute. In other words we must carry our an internal review of your CTS decision. We must then reply in writing to:
- confirm our original decision remains the same, which means we think your grounds for grievance were unfounded; or
- confirm we have taken steps to change our decision, which means we have acknowledged that your grievance was well founded.
If we have not carried out an internal review within two months of receipt of your dispute letter, you have a further two months time limit to appeal directly to the Valuation Tribunal of England. You cannot appeal directly to the VTE if you have not written to us first.
If you are no longer aggrieved about your Council Tax Support
If you accept our decision following our internal review, the dispute and grievance ends there. If you have a separate issue not raised in your original dispute letter, the process starts again. Otherwise, your CTS for the year or no CTS at all is accepted by you.
If you are still aggrieved you can appeal to the Valuation Tribunal
If you still have an issue or issues concerning your CTS decision, you can then appeal directly to the Valuation Tribunal of England (VTE). You must appeal to the VTE within two months of our internal review decision. If you make a late appeal only the VTE can decide whether or not they will accept it.
If we have not carried out an internal review within two months of receipt of your dispute letter, you have a further two months time limit to appeal directly to the Valuation Tribunal of England.
For more information about this stage of CTS appeals see Valuation Tribunal Council Tax Reduction appeals Where they refer to Local Council Tax Reduction scheme, this is the same as Local Council Tax Support Scheme in Merton.