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

[Notmycircusnotmyotter]

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.

The Council does not decide property splits and rebanding - the Valuation Office Agency does. Your council is just the billing authority and has to bill in accordance with the entries and bandings on the valuation list.

Do you not have any street lighting? No road repairs? You do know the police and fire service get a percentage don’t you? I’m sure you’d expect the fire brigade to come to you if your house was on fire. What about the care you may need when you’re older? Does your council not have any parks that you’ve walked through ever? They maintain those. Crematorium? That’s the council as well.
Your council tax pays for so much more than refuse collection.

Yes, damn all those pesky social workers and OTs.

I'm in Band F - £358 per month for a 2 bedroom flat.

Do you not have any street lighting? No road repairs?

The street lighting is poor and some of the roads are so badly potholed I plan routes to avoid them. But I take your point, it pays for the infrastructure as well as the services you use personally.

Mine is just under £300 - next year it will go over I am sure.

What do I get for it? Streetlights/bin emptying and the library which I have recently started using again.

Public sector pay is shite compared to private. Granted we get decent pensions, that just about makes up for it.

why would just 2 of the 27 houses in our street be band F when the other 25 are band E?
There are two designs of houses in the street, but lots of the houses (all?) have been extended or otherwise modified over the years. It seems odd that just 2 are in band F.

Well okay, whatever. My point is that we got a £4000 + council tax bill out of the blue.

Ask for it to be reviewed. Houses only normally change bands due to extensions etc, when they are sold.

I had a review of a property a few years ago and the band was moved up and I got a rebate of the over payments.

Crikey that's a ripoff! 3 bed house here SE just over 200 per month. Our bins are collected weekly. Out council are pretty good at balancing the books. They are going to amalgamate with other councils soon so I expect it will all go to pot then.

It depends on the job. Some jobs are actually higher in the public sector now than they would be in the private. And you’re usually guaranteed a raise every year.

At least it's only 10 months a year. Mine is crazy high and it pisses me off that I pay more than my neighbours who are in a lower band than us but have done massive extensions and added 3 more bedrooms but not been rerated.

Council tax is the one bill I hate the most. Mainly because I can't really control it. I live alone and with the single person discount it's still about £175 per month which seems such a huge number now I have retired. I live in a 3 bed (ha) new build which is very modest. Two tiny doubles and a single. I don't even live in an area with a ton of facilities. The grass never seems to be cut enough by the councils now which pisses me off given how high the bill is. Very annoying when trying to walk the dog.

I want to move house at some point and I will actually take the council tax into account for the first time. Prior to this it has never been a consideration but now it is. It's the bill i really hate paying as I am on a tight budget now and is just seems disproportionately high.

Plus pension contributions unheard of in the private sector.

Adult social care makes up the majority of it. The rest is pennies in comparison.

I don’t think ‘poor parenting’ causes the bulk of fire brigade or police call outs.

I does seem to have got really high over the last few years along with everything else. I do want to contribute but its hard when so much of what the council does with the money isn't obvious i.e. public services are still constantly cut back, the roads are a mess, bins rarely get emptied, facilities disappear and the general up keep of the place is poor. I understand more than half of what we pay goes to child and adult social care, which it a good use but also somewhat invisible to many people.

Paying a lot out and not seeing the benefit yourself along with dropping quality and quantity for everything else across the board can make you feel a bit hard done by.

What has that got to with paying your council tax?

Do you not?
Try watching police 24 hours, or whatever it’s called. Poor parenting is hugely responsible.

One of my neighbours worked quite high up in my local council and is now retired on a nice fat pension he's always bragging about.
DH best friend's father retired from his job at the council on his pension and the next day he returned as a private contractor to them doing the same job but this time earning a lot more so he is being paid twice.
Nothing around here is being fixed - potholes, hedges are overgrown same as and grass areas, no street sweepers etc bins overflowing, hardly and funding for police, fire or anything else.
My neighbour says it's because most of it goes on pensions like his.

£341 came out for us this morning. It’s a joke.

We have this on our street. Houses are re-banded when they are sold as I understand it.

My house is band F, others on the street are bands E and G. They are all the same, extended, done up Victorian terraces. Those that are G have had a more recent sale than those that are E and F.

If I were to sell mine tomorrow, it would go up a band due to the amount of work it has had done to it since we bought it.

A lot of councils you pay across 10 months and get two months ‘Free’
Nothing is free you’re just paying for a 12 months across 10.
to reduce the monthly bill you can request to pay it over 12 months if it helps logistics.

I'm just under £200 per month (over 10 months) for a band C, 2 bed house in Edinburgh.

This includes my water rates.
Have to pay a wee bit extra for garden waste collection.
Some of the charges seem extortionate.

£400 a month here. Bonkers

And their fabulous pensions, flexible working arrangements and annual pay rises!

I’m probably exaggerating but my company hasn’t given a payrise in 4 years