Council tax firm offers NO solution
Ms J.P. writes: I received a phone call from Jennifer Semple at All claim Solutions Limited of 20 Wenlock Road in London. The caller said my home was in the wrong council tax bracket and if it was reduced I could be £240 a year better off. When I said I had lived in the property for eight years, I was told I was entitled to £240 eight times over. I could get the necessary information from the company for £89, or they would handle the claim for me for £99. ALTHOUGH its website still shows the London address, this is the company’s original registered office, provided by a company formation agent. The business is really run from an office in Brighton, where it has been advertising locally for telephone sales staff.
Applicants are told: ‘You will assist clients who are currently in the wrong council tax band and assist them with their claims.’
This sounds as though staff need some knowledge or experience of the law and property values, but no such qualifications are needed and the job pays only £7.20 per hour, including bonus and commission.
How does Allclaim know in the first place just who is in the wrong council tax band? The answer, of course, is that it does not.
Small, faint print in its terms and conditions says that any figures it uses are nothing more than estimates and could be based on ‘information which may be inaccurate or incomplete’.
The company adds: ‘Allclaim Solutions therefore accepts no responsibility and make no guarantee that the service we provide will be free from faults, errors and/or omissions.’
With this in mind, I asked boss Ashley Davis to explain the sales call you received. He told me: ‘There has not been an employee named Jennifer Semple working for this company.’
He added: ‘I do not question the possibility of a call to Mrs P.’
According to Davis, when the council tax system was launched in 1991, homes were often banded on the basis of casual valuations by local estate agents. His company will, he says, advise on how to appeal against those valuations.
But he told me: ‘I can assure you that at no point have we ever claimed to have a definite knowledge of a homeowner’s council tax banding, or guarantee any refund.’
Banding is the responsibility of the Government-run Valuation Office Agency, which told me: ‘If a taxpayer has concerns about their council tax band, they can contact us at any time to explain why they think it might be wrong.
‘This service is free of charge. We also review the bands of similar neighbouring properties to ensure they are correct.’
There is free advice from the agency at gov.uk/council-tax-bands.
This leaves just one puzzle. Here is what I found on the Allclaim website, under the heading ‘What our clients think’.
A quote said to be from the Valuation Office Agency ran: ‘What a great service. I’m sure this will be very helpful to the general public and individuals that have found it difficult to gather the information needed to make a claim.’ Yes, that’s right – according to Allclaim, the Government’s own valuation officials were a client, and provided a testimonial.
Did this really happen? The agency told me: ‘No. It is not a service we would ever use. Happy to make that very clear.’
The quote has now disappeared from the company’s website, with Davis explaining: ‘A complimentary comment was made by an agency staff member during a telephone conversation which we published as a recommendation on our website.’
So, not quite the same thing as having a Government department as a client. But presumably this is just one of the ‘faults, errors and/or omissions’ for which Allclaim Solutions accepts no responsibility.