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.

London is an expensive city for property as demonstrated by the fact your sister's house is worth a mil. I'd also guess your cheaper property plus high council tax equates to less paid over a lifetime than a more expensive property and lower council tax.

If you can take accommodation out of the equation, I find London extremely reasonable for day to day living as there's a lot of choice where you spend your money. Plus public transport is plentiful.

It’s worse than that - children’s services is almost entirely spent on children’s social care. So that poster would happily see more children left to be neglected and murdered by abusive parents if it saves her £40 a month. Honestly psychopathic.

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

Ours is about £350 a month for a 3 bed detached (band F). Previously we paid less than half of that for a 3 bed semi in a different area. The jump was ridiculous, our council tax bill takes nearly 2 months of my salary every year. It's the same size property, with the same number of people, using the same amount of services, earning the same money. They should be standardised across the country

😂 road repairs i drive across town apologising to my car and I may end up at the drs because my bad back is getting aggravated by the banging into pot holes they arnt tiny they are big unavoidable unless I can switch lanes but when there are other cars on the road I have to take the hit

I live abroad and my council tax and property tax equivalent comes out to around £1000/month. Council tax seems super cheap in the UK. But then the services are rubbish there so I guess you get what you pay for.

The trouble with council tax is that most people are having to pay it with income that has already been taxed, so it feels like a double tax. It would better if there was an option to pay it out of your gross wage, before income tax is deducted. This would help younger people who are struggling with rents and mortgages, on top of high council tax.

Council tax should operate like a wealth tax, but it’s so outdated that it doesn’t really

Don’t get me started! You have to book to take it to the tip. I’ve only gone twice in one day since they started that. We have a few sites and I went to two of them. We finished the task we were doing at 9.30. They had no slots until 11.30 and 12.30 depending on the site so then I had to wait, couldn’t get a shower and change as I’d get dirty again moving all the rubbish. Imagine if you finished at 2pm, you might not get a slot that day and no point booking before you know if you’ll be done. I’d rather just queue at the tip if necessary. It helps no one and people say the skips are still heaving with rubbish.

they also made it so you have to reverse into the bays which are now at angle. Imagine when your car is laden with shit, having to reverse into an area where you can’t see and people are walking as they’re getting stuff out of the side of their car next to you. Fine if you have a camera like me, impossible if you have an old car like DP.

@ForCosyLion also, to be fair, biweekly is ok. More wouldn’t be. I was fuming when they initially implemented it but you can squeeze it down.

mine went up 5.2% in total. I was surprised as thought it was 4.99% max. It’s a reform council now. I cannot believe some places have gone up as much as on this thread. What’s the point in having the max 5% in place if they can just ask for it to be lifted? We need some protection from that!

I know that valuations re based on 1992 figures. That’s 34 years ago and doesn’t reflect local and national housing markets.

I am in a 3 bed terrace, and my CT with single person discount is £130pm.
I am on UC so that is further reduced to £30pm.
What band are you? I am band B.

Council tax makes my blood boil. I know it pays for services blah, blah, blah but quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing that and being expected to just be okay with a wildly expensive bill that goes up every single year without fail. They need to manage their funds better. They get an absolute fortune. I shudder to think what it’ll be five years’ time. I’m already struggling with it and I’m not single!

Don’t @ me coming to the defence of this obscenely high bill, I don’t want to hear it. I’m drained and fed up of working full time all for the vast majority of my wage to go on bills. Too tried and too skint. Had enough. Life shouldn’t be this way.

This post made me realise I don't actually know what our council tax is. We moved just a couple months ago so the letter was opened and chucked in the calendar without a thought. £168 a month (over 12) that includes water as in Scotland. That's pretty good going by the answers in this thread.

I'm raging honestly. Same position 3 bedroom terraced house. I don't know why it's risen so much but it's really grinds my gears. It's not like I'm getting anything new of nice for my money every couple of weeks I have to fight the council to do something about the trash hoarder down the road.

That doesn’t seem fair!!

Yes. Same where I am. They get re-banded when sold. Also after an extension (alerted with planning permission).

We're £372 across 10 months in Scotland. I think what frustrates me more, is that when there's a shift as the population sizes decrease, we won't see a reduction. But also, as a household we earn well above the national average, but after all our bills and childcare, we're left with absolutely nothing- we haven't been on holiday since before Covid, we haven't got savings, yet we earn what would be considered by many as a good wage. Yes we have high expenses, but our mortgage increased by £400pm last October, our food shop has doubled, all our bills have increased, and our actual wages have stayed all in all, static. It is worrying! *Editing to add, we also have to pay a £70 factoring fee every 6 months + whatever random costs they add on for 'upkeep' of the area, and now pay for our Garden bin £50 per year, for it to be emptied March-Nov

Our council is 're-wilding' most parks, for the bee's apparently- by that, they no longer cut half the grass and let weeds crumble the paths/play park areas. We do have lots of dandelions now though, they even re wild areas they recently upgraded into things like dog agility or kids play areas around parks activity trails- its very impressive. Nothing quite like being jagged by nettles of thistles whilst you cross the wooden stepping stones.

How can you be in band e in a 3 bed terrace

where I am band c in a 3 bed semi

seems a lot !!! Mine is 217 a month but 25% off so £162 a month

weirdly tho I just checked online and all the houses on my road are c apart from one that is d and is 5 houses up - but I don’t get why its a d as same size as mine /many others

yet some are 2 bed and still C along my road

Disabled (working) single mum. Not entitled to single person discount due to 19yo ds working min wage job.
When I was on tax credits, there was an automatic reduction in CT for being on PIP. Now there's no such reduction.

Recently found out that I can apply for a reduction in CT banding if the house has room for a wheelchair to manoeuvre (it does) and if adaptations have been made to accommodate my disability (there have been adaptations, paid for by a grant from the LA).

Still, I've had to apply for the reduction, and have to pay £300 per month while they decide whether my disability is adequate enough to warrant it.

It's crippling (bad taste pun intended) me!

There's all sorts of reasonable discussions you might have about pensions or whatever, it would be daft to say "every council is spending its money perfectly".

But if people who used to live to 75 are now generally living to 85 then that's just more expensive.

If you spent your windfall from North Sea oil on tax cuts instead of investing it in a Wealth Fund that's more expensive.

If you put up trade barriers with your neighbours that is more expensive.

The fact "you don't want to hear about these things" doesn't make them untrue.

If we keep making bad decisions as a country then we'll keep getting the same results.

Yeah but they also got a bowl of gruel a day, luxuries the tax payer shouldn't be funding

Similar here , mine would work out about the same if I was the only adult. Our water bill also had the 50% increase.

Tbf we are now at a level where we can’t afford anything else to go up. after the utilities and the mortgage and food there’s not much left.

We don’t really do anything each month, we haven’t had a holiday in two years and when we did it was only out of season on a caravan park. We have nothing planned for this year and we no longer do a big Christmas, just a few bits of nice food.

My little car was bought second hand and is over 16 years old. to save fuel I only use it for essential short journeys. I used to pop in and out a few times a week running errands, getting a coffee but that’s all stopped now. We go out once a fortnight at the weekend together to do something free like a beach or country park.

This bank holiday is a good example. My DP is away working so I have the weekend to myself. I’ve got the food shop done today. I might pop out in the car Monday to a nearby park. But apart from that I will be at home, doing cheap hobbies so tv, garden, pets, books, crafts all things that don’t cost anything. I didn’t expect to be living like this in my 50s.

Same here. Ours is a bit lower as we are band D.