What council tax band is my property?
Council tax bands are set by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) based on estimated property values as of 1 April 1991 — not current market value. Leeds City Council then sets the annual charge for each band.
Leeds rates for 2026/27#
| Band | 1991 value | Annual | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Up to £40,000 | £1,522.49 | £126.87 |
| B | £40,001–£52,000 | £1,776.23 | £148.02 |
| C | £52,001–£68,000 | £2,029.98 | £169.16 |
| D | £68,001–£88,000 | £2,283.73 | £190.31 |
| E | £88,001–£120,000 | £2,791.23 | £232.60 |
| F | £120,001–£160,000 | £3,298.72 | £274.89 |
| G | £160,001–£320,000 | £3,806.22 | £317.19 |
| H | Over £320,000 | £4,567.46 | £380.62 |
Rates change annually — check Leeds Council Tax for the latest figures.
Check your band#
Our Property Data page lists the band for every property on the Skelton Gate estate, sourced from the VOA, alongside its EPC rating, house model and sold prices. You can filter by postcode, street, band or model to find your property quickly.
If your property isn’t listed yet, use the government’s Check your Council Tax band tool as a fallback.
Just moved in and no band yet?#
New builds often aren’t banded immediately — the VOA can take 6–12 months to assign a band after you move in. Two things to do in the meantime:
- Register with the council anyway — register for council tax as soon as you move in; you won’t be billed until the band is set. If you’re moving from elsewhere in Leeds it’s a change of address rather than a new registration, and you can file it up to two weeks before your move-in date.
- Put the money aside — when the band arrives, your first bill is backdated to your move-in date. Check what identical homes pay on our Property Data page and set aside that monthly amount from day one, so the catch-up bill isn’t a shock.
Think your band is wrong?#
It’s worth checking, particularly for new-build properties, which are sometimes assigned a provisional band. The process is:
- Check comparable properties — our Property Data page includes the house model for each property. Filter by your model to see what band other identical homes on the estate have been assigned. If yours is higher than properties of the same type, you may have grounds to challenge.
- Contact the VOA — start a formal Check at gov.uk/challenge-council-tax-band. This is free and done online.
- Challenge and Appeal — if the VOA doesn’t agree after the Check stage, you can escalate to a formal Challenge, and beyond that to an independent Appeal.
Timing matters. If you’ve been paying council tax on the property for less than 6 months, you can submit a formal challenge outright; after that you’ll need supporting evidence for the Check stage — so if the band looks wrong, act soon after moving in. Decisions officially take around 28 days, but residents have waited up to a year, so don’t read anything into a long silence.
What happens if your band changes. If your band is corrected down, you are refunded the difference for the period you were overpaying. If it is corrected up, you pay the higher amount from that point forward only — the increase is not backdated. This is different from a new build being banded for the first time, which is backdated to your move-in date (see above).
The main thing to weigh is the effect on your neighbours. A challenge can prompt the VOA to review similar properties nearby, and their bands can move up as well as yours moving down. Their increase would not be backdated either, but they would pay more from then on. On a street of near-identical homes that is worth thinking about before you start.
New residents moving into a property are one of the most common triggers for a band review, so it’s a reasonable thing to check when you first move in.
MoneySavingExpert’s council tax band guide walks through the comparison checks in more detail.