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Original poster

Council tax bill - is this wild or are yours insanely high too?

440 replies

Notmycircusnotmyotter · 01/05/2026 12:14

My local council took £232 in direct debit today for council tax. I'll be honest, I don't budget to the pound, so was shocked when I saw it and assumed they had wrongly taken off my single person discount. But nope. £232 is what 75% of the council tax charge is for my 3 bed terrace.

WTAF. This feels insanely high.

please don't tell me all about bankrupt councils and adult social care. I've heard it. I know.

My point is how are ordinary people paying these sorts of bills? I'm a single parent of two on a decent wage and it stings.

OP posts:
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5
GoodkneeBadKnee · 01/05/2026 13:27

WTAFIsWrongWithPeople · 01/05/2026 13:25

Local council workers are not civil servants.

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Public sector workers.

MiddleAgedDread · 01/05/2026 13:26

£220/month full price, £165 with single occupancy discount.
Band F for a 2 bed flat particularly stings though, as does only get 25% off as a single person. All newer builds round here are much higher bands than older properties of similar size and value, the whole system needs looking at. I'm paying more than families in 3 or 4 bed houses that are worth 3 times as much!

WTAFIsWrongWithPeople · 01/05/2026 13:26

Notmeagain12 · 01/05/2026 13:22

What always surprises me is how cheap London council tax is.

my sister lives in a 4 bed zone 3 semi, worth just under 1m at today’s prices, and her council tax is 230 for 10 months in band d!

I moved to the NE for cheaper living, also a band d property, and my council tax is £250..

So much for London being an expensive city. If you afford a house the actual costs are much lower- public transport, council tax etc are cheaper.

Economies of scale. A lot more people live in each sq km in London than elsewhere.

LadyDanburysHat · 01/05/2026 13:25

Ours is £450 and we don't live in a mansion by any means. A 4 bed terrace in semi-rural Scotland.

WTAFIsWrongWithPeople · 01/05/2026 13:25

GoodkneeBadKnee · 01/05/2026 13:24

Yep. All of us including those who work in the public sector. I hear this "we pay your salary" bollocks a lot. Newsflash - civil servants pay tax too.

Edited
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Local council workers are not civil servants.

WTAFIsWrongWithPeople · 01/05/2026 13:25

Notmycircusnotmyotter · 01/05/2026 12:22

all of us paying for those public sector salaries

Like teachers and care assistants and social workers and rubbish collectors?

Do you not like having street lights that work and leisure centres and public areas having their grass cut?

How else do you think people should be paid for this work?

Imfukinradiant · 01/05/2026 13:24

Thechaseison71 · 01/05/2026 13:21

Council tax wasn't around when I was a kid and I think that poster said she was retired so older than me

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Way to let a point fly right over your head.

Unless you’re both about 102 and had to grow up in a workhouse, I’m assuming there was state funded healthcare and education available. Collected via taxation. 👍

GoodkneeBadKnee · 01/05/2026 13:24

Notmycircusnotmyotter · 01/05/2026 12:22

all of us paying for those public sector salaries

Yep. All of us including those who work in the public sector. I hear this "we pay your salary" bollocks a lot. Newsflash - civil servants pay tax too.

Lifeomars · 01/05/2026 13:24

Savvysix1984 · 01/05/2026 13:02

Mine is £148 per month for a 3 bed semi. No water charges either which helps. Yours sounds really high

Mine is £134 a month for a two bed Band A terrace as a single person, and my water rates are now £61 a month, so I am looking at £195 a month just for those two bills, add on gas, elec and the horrendous cost of food and I sometimes wonder what the point of it all is.

Notmeagain12 · 01/05/2026 13:22

What always surprises me is how cheap London council tax is.

my sister lives in a 4 bed zone 3 semi, worth just under 1m at today’s prices, and her council tax is 230 for 10 months in band d!

I moved to the NE for cheaper living, also a band d property, and my council tax is £250..

So much for London being an expensive city. If you afford a house the actual costs are much lower- public transport, council tax etc are cheaper.

JHound · 01/05/2026 13:21

MikeRafone · 01/05/2026 13:16

pay on square meterage of land you own

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I assume for landlords they simply pass the charge back to tenants? How does that work for those in flats?

Thechaseison71 · 01/05/2026 13:21

CrapGardener · 01/05/2026 13:20

Ours is £145 a month, roughly £9 pcm more than last year if I remember correctly.

Our water bill on the other hand is shocking! From roughly £300 last year to over £800 this year.

On a meter? Or merely estimated. Essex and Suffolk water estimated that mine should go from 20 to 42 a month. Bloody ridiculous. I cancelled the DD and read meter each month, work out what I've used and pay that Averaging 20/22 £. I was already £60 in credit to start with

Thechaseison71 · 01/05/2026 13:21

Imfukinradiant · 01/05/2026 13:15

🙄
Presumably you were once one of these ghastly children. Who was educated and received healthcare, maybe you drive on roads that the council tax goes towards maintaining, have access to public services such as libraries, bin collections, benefit from street lighting. Maybe you’ll need social care as you get older.
Yes it could be a fairer system, but it’s the old live together / die alone adage.

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Council tax wasn't around when I was a kid and I think that poster said she was retired so older than me

CrapGardener · 01/05/2026 13:20

Ours is £145 a month, roughly £9 pcm more than last year if I remember correctly.

Our water bill on the other hand is shocking! From roughly £300 last year to over £800 this year.

keepswimming38 · 01/05/2026 13:20

I was somewhat sympathetic until you started bashing public sector workers. They will be the ones wiping your arse in a few years.

Imfukinradiant · 01/05/2026 13:20

deadpantrashcan · 01/05/2026 13:10

I guess so. We are but scum, it seems :)

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Revolting peasants 😂

Twokittenchaos · 01/05/2026 13:20

Ours has risen by 5% to £304 per month. The bulk of it is spent on adult social care & housing, children’s services and schools which has gone up 10% this year, I’m not sure how you can fund that any other way.

DreamyScroller · 01/05/2026 13:19

EricTheHalfASleeve · 01/05/2026 13:15

Well that's because your landlords were breaking the rules - a separate dwelling has its own council tax, you can't just rent out an annexe as a separate dwelling and claim to be exempt from council tax. That's tax evasion.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/debt/council_tax/chargeable_dwellings

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That as may be, it doesn't really help, does it? We took the property in good faith they were either paying the separate council tax or didn't have to.

Thechaseison71 · 01/05/2026 13:19

It does seem to have got expensive. Mine ( band c) is now £130 a month over 12 months with a 25% discount on a 2 bed flat. But some I read on here are horrific

circusrunaways · 01/05/2026 13:18

Ginmonkeyagain · 01/05/2026 13:16

Point of order, the local goverment pension scheme is a funded penaion scheme. Your council tax is not paying for local government pensions.

Very good point, it’s the one public sector pension that is self funded I believe?

Lifeomars · 01/05/2026 13:18

Friendlygingercat · 01/05/2026 13:01

Council Tax is a sore subject with me. As a single childfree person who earned a good salary I have been a net contributer all my life. As a sinhgle pensioner I am now effectively subsidising families (net takers) who pay NOTHING extra for their children. 20% of my CT bill goes on childrens services and I resent every penny of that. If I ever move I will be sure to leave a huge bill behind me out of sheer spite.

Any arrears will not fall to the next person to occupy your old property; the council would do everything in its power to track you down and obtain payment

HighLadyofTheNightCourt · 01/05/2026 13:18

User74939590 · 01/05/2026 12:17

Mine is over £400 a month, yours sounds cheap by that metric!

Ours too. It's our second biggest bill behind our mortgage.

DdraigGoch · 01/05/2026 13:18

Notmycircusnotmyotter · 01/05/2026 12:45

How would the property / land tax work? I don't agree with only homeowners paying for services.

The freeholder would pay (so in the case of a block of flats the total land tax for the building would be divided between units and form part of the ground rent).

The thing is that it's more expensive to provide services in a sparsely populated area. It's cheaper to provide services to a block of flats than a terrace, a terrace than suburban semis, suburban semis than sprawling mansions with large gardens. So the more land you take up, the more you pay.

Agricultural land and land set aside for nature should be exempted though.

Agapornis · 01/05/2026 13:17

You can't change what the council charges, but it may be possible to change your tax band. https://www.gov.uk/challenge-council-tax-band

Compare yours to your neighbours first: https://www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands
I'm in band B (£155 a month), the neighbours in a mirror copy of my house are in band D (£200). I'm worried they'll one day appeal it and everyone goes up to D!

Challenge your Council Tax band

How to challenge your Council Tax band if you think you're paying too much Council Tax or you want to get a property removed from the Council Tax list.

https://www.gov.uk/challenge-council-tax-band

Ginmonkeyagain · 01/05/2026 13:16

Point of order, the local goverment pension scheme is a funded penaion scheme. Your council tax is not paying for local government pensions.