Really worried, council tax re evaluation

[emily05]

I have been sent a form, I think so that they can re-evaluate our property.

At the moment we are band B and pay £83 a month. This is based on old property prices.

We brought our house for £98,000. SO does this mean that our band will go up to band e?
This could mean we pay an extra £500 a year, which financially would be a struggle.
does any-body know whats going on with this? thanks

dunno emily, but Id be worried too. think in your shoes Id be taking a big hammer to the house to make it look run down at the thought to paying an extra 500 quid

! good idea! Trouble is they are going to re evaluate the whole country, everybodies will go up. It is worrying because tax credits stuffed our payments up, so fiancially we are struggling, this will top it off I think.

Hi,

As far as I know the re-evaluation will just establish new figures for the council tax - so Band A which is (?) under 40k will be Band A under 100k say. Can't see that they can hike everyone's CT to a huge degree.

Its just a scam to get more money if theyre redoing the whole country! Mines currently 77 quid a month, suppose I can also look forward to a rise then not in services of course

aragon,
remember the barefaced swindle over the poll tax?
when they shamelessly hiked everyones tax up. hope they dont do that again.

Aragon - I hope so! Really?? That is great if you are right. In fact if you were in front of me I would hug you!!! And buy you a drink. I have been stressing about this all day. What you say makes sense.

On the reverse side, we went DOWN a band this year. Thank f*. B/c we pay £131/month for Band C.

expatinscotland - I dont think that ours will go down as our property has doubled in price since the first valuations (although obviously this is not our equity as we have lived here 2 years)
But 131 a month! OUrs is £84 and that is bad enough.
Nighty night - You have a point, this is a good way of getting more money.

Yep. And it's going up. So far, the rise is supposed to be 4% next year.

Oh, and the people in the houses (we live in a flat, NO WAY we could afford a house here)? Went to visit my ILs yesterday in one of the best neighbourhoods in town, and there'd been no rubbish collection for a fortnight. The rubbishmen are arguing w/the council over pay.

It won't necessarily go up unless you have had major improvements done to your house,e.g extensions.

Its got nothing to do with the fact your house was worth less when you bought it- cos thats the same for everyone else also!

Really its just to reasess because at the mo there could be some people out their paying ct on a house at a 2bed rate, but it may well have had a massive extension and now be a 5 bed house therefore should be in a higher bracket.

what worries me is that the national average rise may be for example, 100% over the last five years, but our street may have risen by more than that. Would that be taken into account, or would we be rebanded? Our house is already in the grottiest part of town, if we move downwards we'll be under the arches!

All factors will be taken into account - increased/decreased prices in particular areas, home improvements etc. The net effect for teh country as a whole will supposedly be a very very small increase. So DO NOT WORRY

I assumed they would index the overall bands to reflect general increases, so that only those properties which significantly out/underperformed that trend (ie. been improved by extension etc) or ones which had been built since it was introduced and perhaps incorrectly assessed would actually move bands.

I don't even know where they get the price for CT on my property. Its a HA house so the rent is dear and we have to pay £153 a month.

I would love them to re-evaluate our band and put it down a band or 2!