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Seen over the long term, overpayment of council tax by a thousand or more pounds a year, and by tens of thousands of pounds since 1993, is a far more overlooked, pernicious, sustained and unfair squeeze on British household incomes than anything occupying the current (March 2023) public debate around the cost of living.

This book is unique in terms of the data it presents, the insights it provides, the coherent story it tells, and the issues it raises. Using a comprehensive and rigorous approach, it forensically uncovers the pseudoscience behind council tax banding. In particular, it tells the story of how the Valuation Office made price claims for many terrace properties in the London Borough of Haringey that were not simply near misses, but outright absurdities. In the early 1990s, these claims lifted them by tens of thousands of pounds into much higher council tax bands, resulting in their owners subsequently overpaying council tax by as much as 51,000 to 2022.

Among its unique insights, the book identifies Artefacts used by the Valuation Office as the key reason for this outcome. Because these Artefacts did not reflect the letter and intent of the law, they were more often wrong than right, and created bizarre, outrageous and counter-intuitive outcomes. Among these is that a house that sold for 85,000 is paying more in tax (Band F) than one that sold for 200,000 (Band E), so that the proportion of Band F terrace houses in my postcode in Haringey is almost three times greater than in even Kensington & Chelsea, despite the latter having an average terrace price over 400,000 higher in 1991. In Haringey, the Artefacts have left many affluent white middle class homes in more expensive parts of the borough actually paying less council tax than those owned by lower socio-economic ethnic minorities elsewhere.

These Artefacts are vitally important to understand for anyone in England and Wales considering challenging the council tax banding of their property, because they underpin the assessments made by the Valuation Office.

The sheer weight of unique, consistent, robust, and rigorously presented evidence in this book should leave no reasonable person in any doubt regarding the key role played by these Artefacts in contributing to the multitude structural failings of the current council tax system. These failings have left many households in England and Wales that have challenged the banding of their properties both unable to claim overpaid council tax from the past, and unable to avoid the liability of future unfairly high (and rapidly rising) council taxes. By 2028, the worst-case overvaluation since the introduction of council tax would leave a homeowner in Haringey over 69,000 out of pocket, having considerably reduced their living standards and lifetime opportunities. These unfair outcomes mean council tax over-banding is now a significant and growing human rights issue.

This book is entirely coincidental with the cost of living crisis that is currently unfolding and gripping the UK. But its findings of a hidden unfair tax burden worth up to many tens of thousands of pounds add an additional vital but to date poorly recognised and understood element that, for those affected by property over-banding, helps accentuate that crisis.

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MAURICE C SAMUEL