To think an annual property tax is incredibly unfair?

Even if the cost of assessment is £500M in the first instance, that is nothing in terms of one year’s revenue, north of £50B. Ie, from the figures given for assessment costs and revenue, the start up costs for assessment will be less than 1% of one year’s revenue.

Costs will then go down as assessments become embedded. Few LVT or property tax assessments are conducted annually.

No I don’t think it’s fair at all. In so many ways, the elderly person whose lived in the same house in the south east all they’re life and are just managing to make ends meet, but don’t want to move, and may be forced to sell.

my semi in the southeast cost me more than the same in the north, I’ll have to pay more inheritance tax when I die due to the value of my house, more care costs, paid more stamp duty etc.

tax should be fair and equitable, and this isn’t.

I have no doubt it will be designed to capture as much uplift as possible. Grouping new builds with older properties in the same area will push up the “average value".

I don’t know why everyone thinks properties will be so hard to assess? They already are for council tax. Not that it doesn’t have its problems but it’s not a new system. I imagine it’ll be that in terms of actual property+ regional /street value and then open to challenge .

I mean Zoopla valued ours exactly the same as 2 out of 3 estate agents did so it’s all there. It’s not going to be some bloke with a clipboard assessing every single house. The data already exists.

It is unlikely to be self assessed. The incoming mansion tax will be based on the valuations from the Valuations Office. It's unlikely they will deviate from this.

From gov.uk:

The current Council Tax system was introduced in 1993. It taxes domestic property through eight valuation bands, based on property values in 1991. Local authorities set annual Council Tax levels and administer the tax, with support and exemptions available. In 2024-25, Council Tax raised £40.3 billion across England.
The High Value Council Tax Surcharge (HVCTS) is a new charge on owners of residential property in England worth £2 million or more in 2026, taking effect in April 2028. A public consultation on details relating to the surcharge will be held in early 2026.
Homeowners, rather than occupiers, will be liable to the surcharge and will continue to pay their existing Council Tax alongside the surcharge. Social housing will not be in scope.
The Valuation Office will conduct a targeted valuation exercise to identify properties above £2 million and therefore in scope. Fewer than 1% of properties in England are expected to be above the £2 million threshold. Revaluations will be conducted every five years.

Do you have a share token?

@MissConductUS That's interesting, and good that it's open to appeal also. I do know that in Ireland their Local Property Tax is self assessed. The authorities (HMRC equivalent) suggest a band presumably from their vast data sources, and the owner can choose to accept that, or select their own valuation band. I presume if a person's selected band is outside the norm for the general area band, questions will be asked pronto! And I'd imagine it's rare that an owner would return a higher band!

I don't know about elsewhere, but in the U.S., valuations are not self-assessed. Each municipality has an elected tax assessor. The process varies a bit from place to place, but a market value is estimated based on size, location, property characteristics, etc., and that forms the basis for your tax.

You can challenge your assessed value, and many people do. If you (or your agent) can't come to an agreed figure with the assessor, a judge decides. We've gotten our property taxes reduced that way three times in the last 20 years.

itep.org/how-do-real-property-taxes-work/

100% agree. Instead of being a country of inventors and innovators, we now seem to excel at negotiating poor value public-private contracts, killing growth and aspiration, legitimising waste and using the politics of envy to justify inefficient / punituve policies.

It beggars belief that, in a system that depends on taxpayers, council housing could end up providing more security than owning your own home. All whilst vilifying the very people whose taxes help fund the system and the support that others depend on.

Other countries have residential property taxes, how do they do it?

I suspect that it may be self assessed based on market value within bands, with severe penalties for false valuations based on targeted audits. HMRC will know from their vast sources of data what properties are selling for within certain bands in different areas, so if you are selected for an audit and found to have undervalued deliberately, you will pay dearly.

Self assessment means there will not have to be armies of valuers trekking the land to value each and every property. It has massive administrative advantages, and if the penalties for undervaluation are severe enough, it is carrot and stick. It works for non PAYE income tax doesn't it?

I'm not saying that WILL be the case, just what I think might work with the least admin cost, which is eventually paid by us anyway.

I’ve just done the maths and 0.48% of the value of my flat in zone 3 in London works out to exactly the same (to the pound!) as what I pay in council tax with the single person discount.

Under this system you hade less ability to plan because your costs are unpredictable and can become prohibitive. You also will have significantly less choice in retirement.

Likely to be the Valuation Office, using whatever criteria they choose to apply. It is unlikely to be a property-by-property valuation, as that would be a really unwieldy model. Possibly more likely to be based on a slightly larger area.

So your particular house may not have gone up in value, but others in your area have, and up goes your bill based on what the Valuation Office thinks your house would be worth if you bought it this year.

So that £100k increase on paper would cost you more money, today, even though you can't access it, didn't ask for it and your salary hasn't gone up.

Yeh agree plus the selling in of the US system, and living standards based on it, which is never going to happen here in terms of what it pays for and where.

I agree it is unfair as a replacement for council tax but it is much better than stamp duty, so if it replaces that as well I’m in favour.
I would pay more under the proposal but I also want the flexibility to move house in the future and I’d much rather everyone pays a property tax than the huge cost being lumped onto moving house.

How would the value of the property be calculated? I can see online it says actual market value but what is the basis of the calculation for actual market value?

We purchased our property 6 years ago and Zoopla thinks it’s gone up £100,000 in that time period, and property prices increased 20%, which is insane and not remotely accurate for our house because I’ve seen similar properties selling recently for not much more than we paid 6 years ago.

You provided the link and are relying on facts from it as evidence. You can’t pick and choose and cherry pick what evidence is credible and what isn’t.

Do we really believe SH will deliver huge savings due to people suddenly finding employment and not needing the NHS as much?

From your link.

Yesterday, a report by Sheffield Hallam professor Jim Clifford, commissioned by housing association Hyde, found that England’s 4.2 million social rented homes contribute £77.7bn a year to the national economy in savings for the NHS, councils, police and government.