Valuationtribunal Reviews 6

Wrote to me to inform me of a hearing that predated my receipt of their letter.

Wrote to me in an illegible format at least 4 times.

Ignored a conflict of interest of which I informed them

Claimed i did not make my position clear when I did so in writing.

VT appears to be just as corrupt as the council.

Without the Tribunal I would not have won my case against the council. You have to do your own homework, but the clerk made sure that procedures were followed and this meant that the council lost its case.

I find that they did their best to be fair and follow the low and the procedures.

However, you must put in hours to prepare your own case and Chat GPT is very helpful for this.

The Tribunal is there to help and have no connection to either party.

They were easy to contact and kept me up to date about what to expect.

*All UK citizens should write to your MP to raise this detrimental citizen right to be heard in a court of Law.*

As my application to access your service is a "appeal" which your service now only appears legitimate, was for members of the British public to challenge local authority legal "decisions", this, before court action is needed. My application to you is a "challenge" which is clearly a dispute towards Birmingham City Councils liability order. Therefore as you state below... "We do have the jurisdiction to consider appeals against council tax liability matters outside of liability orders."...

...my application to the "Valuation Tribunal Service" and all evidences from Birmingham City Council and myself submitted to you on Monday 7th October 2024 is the "appeal and grievance" you are pretending does no exist, not the... "Liability Order" itself. Birmingham City Council response (67910433 response.pdf); (C-Tax Other enquiry - Page 1 - Enquiry details - Birmingham C); (BCC Information requests) attached. Therefore your so called requirements as stated below had already been submitted to you on Monday 7th October 2024.

"Before you can appeal to us, you must first have written to the council explaining why you disagree with their decision. This is known as your grievance. This should specifically refer to whether you think you should not be held liable for council tax at the property in question or if you think the amount being charged is incorrect etc. The council have two months to consider your grievance and respond to you with a final decision. This decision should expressly confirm your further right to appeal to us at the VTS if you remain aggrieved." If the council fail to respond to you within two months you can submit an appeal directly to us based on no response from them. An appeal being submitted due to no response from the council should be submitted to us within a further two months (within four months from the date of your grievance)."

You have deliberately delayed my application to challenge your colleagues at Birmingham City Council, in order to protect the theft they have conducted against me. Knowing Birmingham City Council did not inform me of any court action before i received the court order. This you are aware of. Please submit my appeal to the Magistrates Court and Tribunal Service to be heard in court. This to stop the blatant theft, collusion and unfair collusion you the Valuation Tribunal Service conduct against the British Public. A petition is needed.

I will write to my MP about your lies and malicious acts of tampering with evidences which are legal court documents which amounts to tampering.

On Oct 21 2024, at 4:11 PM, Appeal Postmaster appealhatappealsdotvaluationtribunaldotgovdotuk wrote:
Thank you for submitting a council tax appeal in respect of the above address. I have now reviewed the contents of your application and must advise that you are not currently at the correct stage to progress a council tax liability matter with us. In the documentation provided you are challenging the liability order that has been issued by the Magistrates Court in addition to providing an overview of the circumstances that led to it being issued. Liability orders are outside the jurisdiction of the Valuation Tribunal Service (VTS) and therefore we cannot progress your application, so we have closed this down on our system.

We do have the jurisdiction to consider appeals against council tax liability matters outside of liability orders. To get to the correct stage to appeal to us regarding the liability issue you will need to follow all the required steps to appeal under section 16 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. Before you can appeal to us, you must first have written to the council explaining why you disagree with their decision. This is known as your grievance. This should specifically refer to whether you think you should not be held liable for council tax at the property in question or if you think the amount being charged is incorrect etc. The council have two months to consider your grievance and respond to you with a final decision. This decision should expressly confirm your further right to appeal to us at the VTS if you remain aggrieved. If the council fail to respond to you within two months you can submit an appeal directly to us based on no response from them. An appeal being submitted due to no response from the council should be submitted to us within a further two months (within four months from the date of your grievance).

Tribunal Support Officer
Valuation Tribunal Service
Second Floor, 120 Leman Street London E1 8EU
Telephone : 0303 445 8100

This service is simply not fit for purpose. As other reviews have said, this is not an independent tribunal that will not consider your case fairly, instead preferring VOA opinion over your evidence. I spent days poring over an extremely misleading case for my property's re-banding by the VOA and discovered alarmingly incorrect sizes reported for many key properties in the case against us. Not only was this clearly ignored in the decision, but the incorrect figures provided by the VOA were actually used to justify the decision. This is truly appalling.

Update: Given the unbelievable failings of the Tribunal to actually consider my evidence, I was able to appeal, and my case was reviewed. The result was ridiculous. They agreed that the panel hadn't properly considered my evidence. They agreed that only the VOA's evidence had been given more weight and mine was ignored for no discernible reason. And yet, they didn't re-consider the case at all and deigned to uphold the decision anyway based, once again, entirely on one side's evidence. They called this justice. Additionally, despite unequivocally clear statements in their Practice statement about what happens in case of failures to adhere to procedure (the VOA sent me their evidence late which seriously affected me, they did not explain this at the hearing to allow me to explain how I was disadvantaged, and so the Tribunal's Practice Statement officially states that their evidence should not have been allowed) they once again sided with the VOA and totally ignored their own procedures, or at least allowed a re-consideration of the case ... this body is a complete joke.

It is not independent as it seems, valuation officer knows tribunal officers and it seems they know someone in council as well. It is like asking a shoddy mechanic about 2nd opinion re 1st shoddy mechanic diagnosis. Utter waste of time and it should be disband, learn to accept council rules or move to countryside
Update.

This organisation is not independent. Clearly they can see people are mentally ill, and still side with the councils over council tax. It's bias and discriminatory and they are not independent. Absolutely disgraceful.