Government announcing doubling council tax double for band G & H

[spookymelon666]

I know it’s not yet set in stone. We can’t afford it. There’s an assumption that these are high value houses. My house is worth no more than 300K 3 bedroom detached 125m2 with no front garden or driveway or garage and a tiny back garden and we are band G in Scotland. I’m so frustrated by the cost of living. We already can’t afford any holidays. AIBU that this isn’t fair?

We already pay £300 a month here! It’s fucking ridiculous to double that.

@randomchap it was on BBC news this morning. Nothing confirmed but being considered. Words they used were band G and H are high value properties. I’m band G and I work in property and know that my house is worth 300K. So not high value.

I feel like this proposal presupposes that people in higher band houses are putting lots into savings. Whereas I think the reality for many is that if council tax increases it just means that people will be putting less money into the economy elsewhere. If we're talking higher earners then it's probably cuts to discretionary spending which isn't going to make anyone feel sorry for them on an individual level, but lower spending on services can't be good for the economy overall?

My little 3 bed house indeed is band G! I have no space at all to the front or sides. Only a small rear garden a tiny kitchen (only space for 1 person) and 3 bedrooms! The other houses around are same tax band along with a factors fee so it’s not an easy sell.

If this is true it’s v worrying. I work in the public sector and husband recently made redundant. I don’t earn enough to cover our basic bills myself but we’re scraping by with savings. Out CT is getting on for £4k per year. If it was doubled we’d lose our house. There’s no way we’d be able to afford it.

I wish I could show you my house. I have a double bed and a small double and a single room. No front space or land to the side at all and the house is about 17 years old. My village is a new village about 20 years old and there are plenty of big houses near that have garages and driveways and front gardens and 4 beds with kitchen diners (mine is a small kitchen). The estate is all banded similar so I wouldn’t have a case but streets away are far bigger homes.

Indeed I’m Scottish Borders but only about 45 minutes drive from Edinburgh

The government have not announced it.

The IFS has suggested raising it but nowhere is reporting that the government announced it.

Thanks
i told this person already it was BBC new this morning.

Why did you say the government has announced it, when they haven't.

Deliberately scaremongering? Pushing misinformation?

Do you mean 125 metres squared? Is that just the house or the garden too? If that is correct- it is a large place.

They will be announcing some of the tax rises that keep coming up, there is a big hole to fill, she didn't stand there the other day blah blahing away for nothing. This does seem to be an easy target and supposedly affects the 'wealthy' so it wouldn't be a surprise if it happened.

So do you think there will be no tax rises.

That's not what I said.

My point was that she said they are announcing it, when it's just speculation and rumour.

Just to make it even more unpalatable, a good proportion - on average more than 20% of your council tax gets nowhere near essential services or even social care. It goes towards the pensions of the bloated public section

FGS stop with all the panicking.

These are things that have been considered. If you want decent services, they need to be paid for, but they're really not going to implement all the 'ideas' that the press would have you believe are already in place.

This is part of a project to have people believe taxes will/have increased much more than they will.

Calm down and worry about out it if/when it happens.

But we are not going to get decent services out of it, the services won't improve at all.

Yeah these tax rises are going to be to keep heads above water

Ok but my point was we're not going to see everything that people are panicking over implemented. The press are deliberately creating a "feeling" that Labour are going to tax you much more than they are. Some increases are to be expected, we know that, but it's really not going to be everything that's been talked about in the last few says.

It’s truly pathetic to see the ‘right wing media’ being blamed for what is obviously pitch rolling by Labour.

This incompetent turd-fest of a government does it all the time.

Yes I don’t think this is the media - it’s Labour testing the water but very badly because they've killed the property market atm and everyone is just waiting to see what happens before deciding what to do

i get that they are in a difficult position but a lot has been self created.

I also don’t think for a lot of people this is right vs left as they feel let down by both sides!!!

There are many discrepancies though, for example in houses not built in 1991 or those that have had extensions.

For example, our own house is a five-bed (but only because that is the majority of our living space - we otherwise only have a tiny living room and kitchen/diner) mid-terrace townhouse in the SE that we bought for £310k in 2017.

It wasn't even built in 1991 and MSE calculations put it as being in band D, which I think is fair. However it's currently an E.

If my area is anything to go by, they could probably gain more by rebanding all the properties that have been massively extended. The houses here and in the adjoining 3 streets were originally built as either 2 beds/2 recs/upstairs bathroom (c/tax band C) or 3 beds/1 rec/ground floor bathroom (band D). The footprints are identical, regardless of number of bedrooms.

Most of the houses have now been extended, some several times, but the council tax bands are unchanged. Some of them are now more than twice the original size.

Over the years, a former 2-bed has had a full-depth, two-storey side extension, a full width single-storey rear extension, and a loft conversion. It is now a massive 5-bed, 3-bath, 3 reception room house but it's still banded C for council tax. It's worth approximately 75% more than it would have been without all the extensions.

There are 5 adults living there (parents and grown up kids) and they only pay 25% more in c/tax than I do, living alone in a house less than half the size.
And they piss off the whole street, because they have 6 vehicles between them, all but one of which are parked on the road, because they no longer have a garage and a drive!

And then there's the family that have had a self-contained "garden building" erected, which they let through airbnb or similar. It seems to have a very high occupancy rate, there are people staying there most weekends and often for a night or two in the week. The house is still banded C, despite having what is effectively a studio flat in the garden.

I'm retired, so my income is state pension plus a small occupational pension. My monthly council tax is more than 10% of my income.

If it went up much more, I simply wouldn't be able to afford to stay here.

A fair council tax, would take into account all the income and all the wealth in a household (minus the debt and cost of depends) and then tax accordingly. As they have no way of doing that whatsoever, anything they do come up with council tax wise is a stab in the dark.
For people with lower incomes or high mortgages who passed affordability checks based on lower council tax, this could be quite bad. Especially those who have recently paid stamp duty. I would have thought it won’t apply to anyone who paid stamp duty at higher rates already, which many people did who have higher band houses purchased in the last X years.

Perhaps a system where you can elect whether to pay stamp duty or more council tax over a long time would be fairer? You need to keep younger people neutral as regards affordability checks for mortgages as otherwise you stall the entire housing market.