Annexe council tax confusion

[MummyM33]

Hi, we're in the process of buying a house. It has an annexe which is part of the main house (no separate front door) but the current owners have adapted it so their parents can live there. It has its own bedroom/ensure, lounge area and very small kitchen (although no oven if that makes a difference?). When we move in it will just be used as an area for guests to stay occasionally and the mini kitchen will be used as a utility room. My question is do we have to pay extra council tax as I've heard this is the case? If so how can we avoid this, ie if we remove the kitchen cupboards will it no longer count as a separate kitchen? Any advice would be great, thanks

www.gov.uk/guidance/understand-how-council-tax-bands-are-assessed#council-tax-bands-and-annexes

This is the guidance.

Have you asked the seller if they pay council tax separately? If so you'll need to speak to the VOA. It can be reassessed if you've made the area not seperately habitable.

Thank you, I did ask and they said they don't pay any extra council tax although they mentioned it may be re assessed when the house is sold

It's the council you need to speak to. A change in ownership can trigger a reassessment, they can tell you a) if it will happen and b) how the annex will be treated.

You need to look at removing the council tax liability, not avoiding it. Are there two different CT references at the moment? Are the utilities supplied separately? I would tell the council you are tgoing eating the place as one dwelling and ask the council what you should do to remove the separate CT look ability for the annexe. If the house was extended by the sellers to provide the annexe then I think there be a possibility it will be reviewed and moved up a band after the sale has gone through.

Thank you, I'll give them a call as soon as we're in and ask them the question. I know it may trigger a reassessment but I guess it's best to be open and honest so like you say maybe they can give advice.
My sister bought a house a few years ago where the previous owners had taken the kitchen cupboards down in an annexe and stored them in the basement to avoid two council tax bills. My sister had them put back in so my mum could live there and she pays her own council tax bill, although she has her own entrance so I thought that might have made a difference.

No as far as I'm aware there is just one utility supply and bill

We have a separate flat above our detached large garage. When it was given pp we had to agree that it could not be sold as a separate dwelling. In return we pay for one dwelling (main house and garage/flat) for Council Tax. There is no granny in it though! We have a kitchenette and bathroom in the flat as well as living/dining and bedroom space. It has a separate front door and is detached from the main house. Quite frankly they never checked what we put in or who has lived in it. The agreement says it’s part of our house and not separate. They cannot have it both ways!

My friend has a detached party barn with kitchenette and bathroom. Again it’s not taxed separately because it’s part of the house, by pp. I would return it to being all one house with necessary internal amendments and maybe accept a higher band of CT.

Our utility bills include the flat and main house.

Thank you so much @BellaAAA20 that's so useful to know, just wondered if there were any examples so that's perfect!

Hmm, based on my experience, you could be charged. We moved in November and our house had a loft conversion with a bedroom, en suite and kitchenette. We are currently being charged a second council tax bill for it. The documentation we received from the VOA suggested that removal of the kitchenette (including plumbing, not just taking out the cupboards) would be required in order to revert to one bill. It doesn't matter whether or not someone lives in that bit or not, because there is the possibility that they could we are being charged.

We also currently have a kitchen on the first floor (as well as the main kitchen on the ground floor), but this has not generated a third bill because it's just a bedroom that's been turned into a kitchen - there's no associated bedroom and bathroom creating a self contained unit......

Thanks @bluebunnyblue, what I'm confused with here is what's the difference between a kitchen and a utility room? Say if I take out any appliances such as fridge and cooker, but why would I need to remove the plumbing as utility rooms have sinks in them? Just wondering if you've challenged that?

We bought quite recently and can effectively have an annexe. It was not listed as such though and the second kitchen was listed as a utility (with oven). One bill, no investigations here

Hmmm thanks, see it's been listed as 'with annexe' wish they had advertised it as utility!

I think it's not so much about the distinction between kitchen and utility, as whether the kitchen-type room, bathroom and bedroom/living space could be considered a separate area. Eg in our case the kitchenette and ensure are accesses through the bedroom so if you locked the bedroom door it would be self contained. So if your annexe contains kitchen/utility, bathroom and bedroom/living, then it could be a separate dwelling like ours could......? Though we haven't challenged ours, so I can't be sure. I was initially concerned that if we challenged it we'd risk ending up with a third bill! But having revisited the guidance due to this thread I'm sure they couldn't give us three bills and fairly convinced that we should be paying two (according to the law) u til we remove the kitchenette.

Ensuite! Not ensure, sorry!

Ah I see, that makes sense. Luckily we can shut the bedroom off as there is a hallway between that and the little lounge and kitchen so hopefully that will make a difference . Thanks for everyone's advice :)

I really don't think it matters how it's been advertised. The question is whether there is a self contained area that contains sleeping, bathing and kitchen facilities. Just adding another kitchen to a house wouldn't mean two bills, unless it was arranged such that you could put a lock on one single door and then have a self contained dwelling. Does that make sense?

I doubt the council tax people look through right move etc. In our case the house was previously used as a business on the ground floor and residential upstairs, so we had to notify them it was now all residential and that triggered the re-banding. They didn't visit the house but I suspect they viewed our planning application, which had floor plans so they could see the layout of the loft conversion, with the kitchenette and ensuite.

Cross-country posted with your last post OP - sounds like you might be ok then 😊

Unfortunately they do check rightmove. We bought a house with an annexe that was tagged for re-banding on sale and they bought a print out from the sale listing of the floor plan

Also, it's voa NOT council who will deal with it. The thing they are looking for is whether you could lock a door and have kitchen, bedroom and bathroom facilities all together. In our case we removed the door in the middle of the hallway which meant the area was no longer self contained and it no longer counted as an annexe

Fair enough, shocked, I wouldn't put it past them to check. For us they could get the info from our planning application too.

I know it's voa who do all the banding, but in our case it was the council who asked them to I think, as we had notified them that the whole house was now residential and we weren't going to pay business rates and so they passed it on to voa for rebanding. Previously I think it was a band d (first floor dwelling) and band a (2nd floor loft conversion) and ground floor business rates. Now it's band g for the ground and first floor together and band a for the 2nd floor.

Sorry blue, my point about voa wasn't aimed at you, lots of pp's have mentioned council and wanted op to be aware banding is set by voa, council only send out the bills

Thanks @shockedandsurprised again that's really useful, when they came out were they quite open with what you needed to do in order to stop it being classed as an annexe? If they will work together on it I think the process will be so much easier

Mummy, no they were not at all! In my opinion they were desperate to class it as an annexe. We removed the door before they arrived, from reading the guidelines we knew that was something that would help our case. They went round alone and they kept discussing ways it could be turned into an annexe. One of them had to remind the other they could only make a decision on the current set up, not what "could" be done in the future. I'd advise read the guidance thoroughly and do whatever you can before they visit to remove any possibilities of an annexe