Council tax....amazed!!!

[oksonowwhat]

I pay £100 per month for my council tax. I live in a ha house in a countryish location on a busy road. A very small house i may add!

I have started cleaning for a family who have just moved to a wonderful house. She asked me to sort out the filing in their office last week and i happened to notice their council tax bill whilst i was making up a file for household bills.

They pay exactly the same as me per month!??? How does that work then?

They live in a gorgeous house it is only four bedrooms but the house itself it mahoosive. Two bedrooms have ensuites and then their is a big family bathroom. The downstairs is so big it is like cleaning a school hall. There are masses of reception rooms etc., etc., and the grounds are amazing. They also have a granny flat over the garage.

So how does it cost the same as mine??? Theirs is in a village too, a more exclusive village than mine.

[sqweegiebeckenheim]

Shelleyboobs would you mind if I PM'd you?

[breatheslowly]

When we moved to our new house it triggered someone to come out and look at the banding because the previous owners had extended over the garage. Apparently planning permission or building regs or something go on record and the reassessment only happens when the house is sold. A lovely bloke came out to look at the house. He had the plans for our house and a description of what had been done. He said that he was only meant to inspect it from the outside, but I showed him what had been done from the inside as you can't really see a converted roofspace from the outside. He measured up and said that the bandings would depend on the volume added in this case (number and type of rooms might also be an issue, but wasn't for us). We then got a letter to say that the band had been left the same.

Might they have extended with 2 bedrooms? Could the granny flat be separately taxed?

[oksonowwhat]

Betterwhen, i won't get anymore involved. I was just surprised i suppose. Wondered why their gorgeous house would be the same as mine. Kind of hoping mine might be reduced i suppose but after looking on the net i don't think i will ask for a reduction as similar houses on our street are banded the same.

The house owner is very busy and i suppose he thought it made sense to get someone else to do the sorting/filing. I always do their bank statement filing and have never once felt slightly inclined to peek or be nosey. Just happened that the council tax bill was sat there infront of me quite obviously showing the monthly payment. I was also having to separate the new house bills from the old house ones so i did have to read a little.

[oksonowwhat]

Shellyboobs, NO i actually meant i would see if i could get mine lowered, alright?

[FlossieFromCrapstonVillas]

I challenged mine about three yrs ago, it went down a band, we paid Council Tax of around a penny a month for a year! (Or something daft)

New build, developers had forgotten to tell Council (or HRMC) the bigger house they were going to build was replaced by a slightly smaller one.

Reeesult.

[betterwhenthesunshines]

I would keep out of it. I'm amazed someone asked you to sort out their filing for them as it does mean you could know some fairly personal financial stuff about them. I think if you get involved you could find they don't want you as a cleaner anymore.

Just be glad your council tax is only £100 a month, we pay over £300 and have to pay for parking (just increased by 75%) and garden waste extra... and don't get involved in anyone else's finances!

[TalkinPeace2]

The other tricky issue is the "legality" of houses
here in Southampton, the estimate is that 1 in 3 houses have had work done that requires Building Regs sign off
but do not have it (mine included)
they have moved me up a band even though they have not officially approved my work
SO if the same pattern is repeated elsewhere there are hundreds of thousands of home owners who will take their cases to appeal with the Valuations Agency (not HMRC btw)
hence the extreme lack of will to bring the whole thing up to date

for the record, I'm not signed off as I refused to change every door in my house for a fire door as there is no legal requirement to keep the doors closed and an open door is not (as per building regs doc B) a fire door. The jobsworth agreed to go away till the rules were changed!

[ShellyBoobs]

I will see what i can do about this!!!

Do you mean that you'll try to get their bill increased?

[oksonowwhat]

No def the current house. I checked address as i was so surprised!

[WoodBetweenTheWorlds]

OP, are you sure that the bill was for the property that they live in? Or could it have been the bill for an investment property or something similar?

[oksonowwhat]

Ah well i reckon they will get it re evaluated then i suppose! Don't want to sound mean but i was gobsmacked that my little place was costing the same!!!

[Oggy]

okso

Only thing I can think is they must have done soem major work to it re extending etc then. New council tax banding doesn't kick in until the next owber takes over when it gets re-evaluated (this happened to us when we moved into our current home when previous owners had done a loft conversion)

[Robotindisguise]

I think you're right and I think they're going to be in a bit of trouble. It's one thing to have a 2 bedroom house in 1991 (when they last came round with clipboards and assessed) and since then to have had a couple of extensions, so you now have a much larger house. That's totally legit - although when they do revalue, the homeowner can expect a much bigger bill.

But if you knock a house down and rebuild, that's a new property - albeit one at the same address. At that point it should have been revalued. Since it wasn't - that would be fraud I should have thought. Mind you, fraud on the part of a previous owner, so I guess your employers would probably be ok.

[oksonowwhat]

Oggy, i saw it in black and white! I have looked into mine and all the houses the same as mine are in the same band. I'm abit scared of challenging it just in case they put it up! Thats just my luck!!
I also think that the other house must be being charged before it was rebuilt or something!!!

[Oggy]

I really doubt that a house worth 900,000 is paying £100 a month in council tax (unless its in Wandsworth where council tax is pittance and a 3 bed terrace will cost you nearly that anyway)

[oksonowwhat]

Very interesting replies. Thank you all very much. By the way, mine is a housing association rented house, theirs is their own house and although hard to say i would say its work well over £900,000. I will see what i can do about this!!!
Someone suggested it may have been extended. That might be a good point, i know the guy who owned it before actually built it, so i'm wondering what was on the land before!!!

[slavetofilofax]

I appealed our tax band when we first moved into this house. It's a semi and I found out that we were being charged as a band higher than our next door neighbours. I can't remember what the band was, or which one we are in now, but it definately went down.

They said at the time that it was worked out based on the house when you moved into it, and when we moved in, there was no downstairs toilet. We had one put in, so apparantly the next owners of this property will have to pay more because when they move in, there will be a downstairs toilet. It's ridiculous.

[Robotindisguise]

I wonder, has it been extended? The last time valuations were done for council tax was 1991 - which is why when you look at the literature which goes out with the bills they are no help at all (Band A up to something like £40,000)

If the house was much smaller in 1991, and since then has been extended / done up - if they ever grasp the political hot potato of revaluing housing your employers will be in for a shock!

My house is extended and sometimes I do wonder exactly when the extension was done and if I'll get a nasty surprise myself...

[borderslass]

We used to be band B but DH found out that others in bigger houses where band A and appealed the banding this was about 5 years ago it was dropped to band A for us and another street whole street got a cheque for overpayment ours was £1800 we'd been in this house from beginning of council tax . A neighbour sent us a christmas present as a thankyou that year.

[Stupify64]

I signed up about 1 hour ago as was so keen to add my views on another topic & am so ashamed that I typed Of instead of If. I have joined the ranks of the inept in such a short time. Apart from the typo the rest of the post holds good tho'...

[Stupify64]

Council tax bands are set by HMRC & are based on the supposed value, on the open market, assuming vacant possession, as at 1/4/1990.
It's not the size, it's its worth, eg a garden flat may be smaller, but might sell for more. Of you disagree with your banding, contact the Valuation Office Agency. Bear in mind that an appeal could also see your band go up. Guess what I do for a living...

[splashymcsplash]

Thank you for posting this. I live in a block of flat (all one bed, very similar size inside). My neighbours flats (which are slightly bigger) are a lower council tax band. Surely this is grounds for appealing? Surprised the flats werent all given the same band!

[CardyMow]

Yes, Custy. Which means that if you are in a new house, your council tax band WILL be higher (often 2 or more bands) that a property of exactly the same size or spec that has been built BEFORE the original Council Tax Valuation. It's CRAP.

[CardyMow]

I should add - mine doesn't have a dining room either, they are both VERY small 3-beds (in fact my council classes them as 2.5 beds).

It is quite a 'posh' area of my town though, plus officially it is part of a village (but is a new estate that isn't really part of the village at all, in fact it is separated from the village by a huge Bypass road...) and all the houses are less than 7 years old in this bit. But being part of the 'village' means that part of our fucking extortionate Council Tax is Parish Council Tax.