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

Have you missed all the news over the last few years about the "cost of living crisis"?

£350 here due to tax because we near a tourist place...it's shocking

We have an ageing population. Council tax isn't going to get any cheaper for the foreseeable future.
Council staff aren't on mega-bucks.

I'm also a single parent on a decent income OP. Others don't quite realise how hard it is on one income. The tax syatem etc should reflect household income not individual income. I also get zero CMS. What looks like a good wage is actually less than someone on benefits. It's shit!

I’m £1885 per year which includes water and sewerage. Two bedroom sandstone cottage.

Mine has also gone up loads. I have a small detached modern house but no front garden, no garage, a tiny kitchen (fridge freezer doesn’t even fit in it, it’s in a cupboard in the hallway) 3 beds and small back garden yet I’m band G. Most people don’t believe me when I say I’m band G. It’s a small house.

I’m paying £178 for a 3 bed mid terrace. That seems high to me as I have lost single person discount for my daughters gap year. That said I did a loft conversion 10 years ago so I guess the rate is still on the 2 bed rate until I move and they will reband.

Mine is a 3 bed semi detached and I pay 135 a month! I thought that was enough !

I did this and they said no. We live in an average 4 bed on a road with similar houses who are all a G band - if they lower our band they’ll have to do the whole road. It was built in 1995 and council tax was based on the 1991 value. We paid less than the 1991 value when we bought it in 2001 - I argued that too! Still said no!

In some areas, Orkney I think is one, the council pension scheme takes more than 100% of the council tax take. How they function is anybody's guess.

In some areas nearly half of Council tax is spent on pensions for Local Authority staff.

I’m now £178 for a 2 bed flat, single person’s discount, central Scotland. I’ve no problem paying for schools, social care, etc. But I do feel us single, childless, lot lose out all ways. (I was sadly unable to have kids.) We now pay extra for garden & food recycling, FFS! It’s not encouraging anyone,
The roads are in a terrible state, and our town centre is about to undergo 9 weeks of traffic disruption- at a cost of £1.5 million, apparently ) which everyone is complaining about. For example, it’s probably going to take me an extra 15 minutes to get to work.
Anyway, what I’m getting at, is there’s some heavy cash being spent on these big projects, but I do think single person households should get more of a discount. Not sure how we’re costing 75% of what a 4 person household is!! For example, my parents, in a 3 bed house, about 5 miles from me, are only paying £220 in total!!

Yep, closure of all those specialist schools to ‘save money’ really was a stupid, shortsighted idea

I blame the environmentalists, everything councils do now costs 2-3x as much and takes 2-5x as long because of all the environmental studies/mitigations they have to go nowadays.

One east anglian council has already spent 56m on a 4 mile road without a single inch of it being built so far because of some rare bats that someone managed to find on the route.

HS2 could have been up and running already if it wasn't for all the eco work that is forced on them.

I am all for the environment and eco stuff but there has to be a balance and at the moment far too much money is spent on the eco stuff but legally has to be done but would be better spent elsewhere.

Mine is 160 with the single person discount:( bills do not work well for single income households.

It does not take a mathematical genius to see that the single person discount should be 50% to be fair, The entire rotten system is built around the assumption of a two‑adult household. Families receive more state support. Single, childfree adults pay proportionally more and use proportionately less servces, When this is pointed out, that single people are effectively subsidising families then they feel accused. They cant handle it. So they reach for a moral justification rather than a factual one.

The obtuse argument that "my children will pay your pension and wipe your bum falls down completely.

Having children is not a public service and a pension is not a reward for having cvhildren.

Your children are not going to personally "look after" me. This is not an argument. Its a deflection. There is no gaurantee that your children will ever find jobs or contribute to the community. They could grow up to be criminals, drug addicts or have "mebtal health" problems and put nothing into society. Children suck up huge resources and generate waste. They spread disease. But their parents pay nothig extra.

Especially hard as a single adult OP! It's tricky when you can split it in half with a partner but completely different when you can't split any of the bills with anyone! I feel you

Well, while we'd be pretty ;pissed offvhere in Runnymede to see our CT bills rise to 'pay for Spelthorne', in reality we're both going to get hammered because of Woking :(

Where is everyone living for such high council tax? Mines £150 and I complained because it was much cheaper the year before

I was all set to agree with you as we pay over £4300 a year, no we aren’t millionaires, we live in an area that is extortionately high, top 3 in the country.

This is a daft comment though, we pay for state services, services that have to be run by someone and we’d be lost without. They aren’t high salaries, they’re vital services.

Why ?

Gosh this is a reality check- I thought mine was bad at 185!!

I wish mine was only £230!

Tho the Diff between B and a one bed flat (friend) and C 3 bed semi (mine) in same town is only 300 a year - I was so so suprised

its not the council who band the houses, you get the valuation office to decide and they don't lose any money as they are not collecting council tax

I got my house rebounded - just had to show 5 other houses locally that were lower band and similar size and bedrooms

Councils take the council tax in ten payments over the year. Ring them up and tell them to take it over twelve months which takes some of the sting out of it. Apparently it will be twelve payments by law from April 2027. It’s your money not the council’s.