will you admit the council snoops to your house

[mummylin2495]

regarding the story in the paper today will you be happy to admit the men from the council to inspect your house and see how you have improved it ,only to be taxed a higher rate ?We have a conservatory in our home ,which we have had built on our land and paid for with our money,they say if the bring in the scheme and we dont let them in we will be fined .They are intending to slap charges on to anyone with a patio,greenhouse etc.

Thinking about it, our council tax should go down masses, following our recent valuation for re-mrotgage which valued the house at about two thirds of what we expected so I will let them in with pleasure!

Bloody outrageous, should have to go to the court to get a warrant to gain entry like the police !

"would I get a discount if I let my house go into disrepair" Yes actually. My Uncle has just had a rebate on his council tax after his unreparied property was dropped by a band or 2. Backdated several years.

I suppose that if you've had anything done to your house that required an application for planning permission, the council will already be aware that you have improved the house.And in applying for planning permission, you impicitly agree to your house being inspected by a planner in order for them to decide whether to grant planning permission or not. Just musing really - I was a planner and once got refused entry to a property in order to take photographs (externally mind) to complete the case file and allow the application to be determined. I had my warrant though, and basically it was argued that unless we were allowed the access to assess the impact of the extension, we couldn't make a decision. The applicants withdrew the application rather than allow me to visit their house. Did make me wonder quite what they had to hide. I had no interest whatsoever in looking inside.
But if they had then had to have building regulations approval as well, then the Building Inspector would have to have had internal access as well in order to assess the structural side of things.
I suppose my point is that if you improve your house by extending it in such a way as to need planning permission you essentially agree that Council employees are going to visit and inspect your house and that that application is going to be in the public domain. And I doubt then that they would have to revisit at a later date to make a judgement about whether the house has increased in value.

Mummydear - under the Town and COuntry PLanning Act, planners can be issued with warrants (photo id) that basically state that the bearer is entitled to enter any land or property pursuant to the provisions of the act (i.e. to investigate planning complaints, breaches, and to assess applications).

You all will end up like me and not bother answering the door unless you know who is there!

Can they fine you then?

I suppose they will inflict this on Scotland too at some point.

pooka - I am saying this a bit tongue in cheek , lots of authorities can get warrnats to enter your house but this new proposed legis;ation appears that they don't need a warrant.

Totally agree with you about the planners etc already having visited the house anyway re planning application and as to why they should have the need to visit again .

I had ten bloody councillors tramping through my house when we applied for planning permission.

If the plans are in the public domain etc and even if pallning permission is not needed you sometimes get a lawful development cert , why should your home be inspected again. What is there is to be gained ? Perhaps someone from planning could throw some light on it ?

It shoudl be obvious to the planners that we have a shower room added and any estate agent can give them an idea of what value that adds to the property. Nothing gives them the right to then come and photograph it or any other room in our house.

Apparently views will add to value too. We look out over arable land (currently planted with rape - lovely - and it's a joy during crop spraying) but they don't need to access our house to see that, or the patio we laid (yes, that'll count too). And we have the crappiest uPVC double glazing you can imagine (put in by the previous owner) but that'll increase the value too - even though the gov. have been telling us all to put dg in to save energy, and I suspect it is compulsory on new builds.

I have no problem with my property being reassessed, it happened in our last but one house too, but surely things like views would have been in the original valuation. I have a huge problem with anyone coming into my house without my permission and taking photos of my own private personal space and possessions - and seeing my children if they happen to be at home at the time.

One of the reasons they abolished the Rates and brought in Poll Tax then Community Charge was that the rates penalised those who improved their homes with bathrooms, CH etc. It looks like we've come full circle.

It's true that if the Council need to know what has been built to improve the house and it's value, then they should be able to see from their own records what has been permitted and presumeably built. Aerial photographs can confirm extensions and lots can be seen from the public domain rather than solely through a site visit.
That wouldn't apply for extensions that were permitted development and the householder chose not to apply for a lawful development certificate AND it didn't need building regs (like some conservatories). But maybe you could argue that a conservatory alone wouldn't increase a property's value so enormously anyway and so it wouldn't matter.
Have to say that it never even occurred to me that I wouldn't want Council officials from seeing my children or looking at the outside of my house (or even getting access via my house to look at the back). But I suppose that's because I know that they wouldn't come into my house without me being there to let them in, and then I could engineer the visit to my own satisfaction (children out of the way if I wanted, doors shut on the way to the outside or the route to the extension). They're not going to break your door down or skeleton key their way in. It's not so dissimilar (or even less "dangerous") than having a cleaner, tradesmen working on boiler, builders building said extension, electricians and so on - none of whom ordinarily have CRB checks either.

you only need a CRB check if you are going to be alone with a vulnerable person (adult of child) so unless your planning on leaving the council man to babysit, that argument is redundant.

it wont go ahead. the Conservatives will get in next election - frankly becuase of unfounded newsstories like this.
"labout to introduce new window tax"
"labout to introduce tax on clocks"

pah. really!

don't forget beard taxes and taxes on having ginger hair. I'm sure they'll be breaking news in the next few weeks too
To be honest, I'm not sure what the fuss is all about. It's about time that the concil tax bands were reappraised. Hasn't been done for decades. [and am speaking as one who is currently having a loft conversion and has already extended the basement]
If the Council tax bands are based on property value, then previous improvements to the property should be taken into account and I would have thought that it is unlikely that many houses will leap more than one band at most.

Just read this morning that if you live in a 'nice' area (low crime rates, good schools - which we do) coucil tax will triple or quadruple. That would mean that dh would pay roughly a quarter of his annual salary in coucil tax (I am a sahm). Terribly fair, isn't it?

I have just renovated my whole house AND I have red hair AND dphas a beard We are f**d!

Can't see it happening in a million years - no way would anyone's Council tax triple or quadruple. Just scaremongering IMO.

but howler - dya have a clock?

we've always had a patio and havent added any rooms to the house but extended the back two bedrooms out a bit and consequently made the landing and bathroom bigger by moving internal walls. would they assess me in a higher rate becauase i now have 3 double bedrooms? if not then there';s your answer, knock all the internal stud walls downm and have a one bed house

better start saving howler

Thank god for pooka's voice of sanity.

Pooka, if you get a house in a very bad condition because that's the only you can afford, and spend a few years improving it little by little while painstakingly saving to pay for the mortgage, (talking about simple decoration changes rahter than changing the number of rooms, etc) Would you be expected to pay a higher council rate if the house interior looks better than it did?

If so, is it not contraproducent to the government to implement such measures?, after all many families who are barely able to cope with the expense of buying a first home might no longer afford their houses and will end up queing for a council house.

In the same way, such meassure could have a class segregation aftertaste. If you bought a house years ago in what was a bad area that has now developed and become fashionable, would you be forced out when your pension is no longer enough to cover the good area increased tax? Seeing it from that perspective this measure tends to erradicate less economically able people from good areas even when they have been there long before the price rise.

Obviously, I may have get it all wrong, hence my questions

And obviously, there are mamny new posts here since I started writing this message

BTW Pooka, our council tax payments have gone up quite a lot in just 3 years and we have not made any changes to the house and our tax has gone up by 20-30% in 4 yrs.

But I suspect that in assessing improvements, if it happens, the Council assessors will be looking at physical extensions to a property rather than internal redecoration (after all - estate agents when valuing houses tend not to look past the decorative state). Things like reqiring and new central heating - again wouldn't have thought that that would be make you just property bands. If you look at the probable time involved in reevaluating properties it makes sense that they first look at the houses that they are aware have been physically extended or improved in such a way as to need consents.
Our council tax has also increased, but not enough if you ask me. My local council has one of the lowest council taxes in london and would do anytning rather than increase it. Including massive reductions in waste collection, no improvements to local parks, no grass cutting in summer, no youth schemes and general strain on all services. Why? Because it's a conservative borough, with a lib dem threat, and they know that increasing council tax might alienate their voters. Never mind the fact that services are poor.
Rather than maintain the status quo in terms of services, by increasing council taxes, my local council actually cuts services. And in doing this they leave such a legacy that should they be voted out in the next elections, the incoming council will have to raise taxes massively in order to provide any improvement to services because they have been kept so artificially low.
That's why I almost approve of councils that introduce tax increases when necessary to continue to provide good services- because they seem to be demonstrating a committment to the local environment rather than grimly hanging on to power for power's sake.

Nowhere in that linked article does it say that internal decoration is taken into account.