New build council tax so high

[Baldpatchkid]

I know most council tax banding is meant to be tied to the older house values from 1990? But why do new builds seem to have such high banding.

Near me a small 1970s 3 bed semi is normally band B. But the new builds with smaller footprints are ofter D or E for the same time of house. Yes they should be more energy efficient but does that account for it?

Added to that they seem to be on unadopted roads so have council tax and service charges to pay which feels like a massive scam. Effectively paying twice for the same thing because the council are taking your money but not providing the service.

We've a couple of big new build developements going up near us in quite a deprived area and I keep nosing at the adverts and it got me wondering.

It’s essentially because as you know the older properties got valued & banded years and years ago, the new build houses (as they are only just built) get banded now. So we live in a newbuild home and are Band C council tax, but my parents house is worth 2x as much as ours now and they are only Band A, because when it was valued for banding 20+ years ago due to house prices then theirs was worth less. It all feels like a bit of a scam to me 😂

Ouch! that does seem like a scam

Leasehold on new builds have widely been reported as scammy and theres been pressure about making it fairer. I could see this being the next big con on new builds. Paying higher council tax and in the case of unadopted roads also having to pay fees but with no ct discount.

To be fair not all new build estates have unadopted roads. All of ours are adopted :)

I know I guess thats why it makes the ones that arent adopted seem so bad to me.

Do you have management fees or are yours true freehold ?

Council Tax bands are set by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) which is an independent public sector agency.

The band is determined by the open market value of the property as of 1st April 1991. If the property didn't exist then, the VOA essentially guess what it would have been worth then if it had existed. I know it sounds crazy!

If you think it is wrongly banded you can appeal to the VOA for a revaluation.

Ours are true freehold

Good choice, so many are getting double fleeced and have to pay estate management fee on top of council tax.

How does it get decided that roads are unadopted? That certainly seems to be a rough deal to be paying a double whack.

We bought a new build years ago and looking at similar houses nearby (including new builds) ours was rated in my opinion a band too high. I appealed and won. I had a rebate on the council tax we had paid while the appeal was being considered.
From memory you have limited time to do this after the property is built. Do you research, I provided evidence of properties nearby and gave details of room sizes, number of rooms etc to back up my claim. It was all considered on paper (no hearing) as they try to avoid hearings where possible. Worth a go

I appealed when moving into a new build, gave examples of non-new builds nearby on a lower band.

They came back to me giving an example of another new build being on the same band, and rejected my requested for the band to be reduced on that basis. I could have gone to tribunal but for the difference in amount, lack of certainty I would be successful and time it would have taken, it didn't seem worthwhile.

I do feel they should be required to make comparisons to houses that actually existed in 1991

Check local council tax bands on this website, VOA value it, the council produces the bill for it. You need to see if you can find comparables

https://www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands

When council tax was brought in they literally drove past the ends of roads and banded by basically guessing, most worked out correctly others did not. It might well be that those B band 1970s builds should be a higher band. I don't if this still applies but basically it used to be that a 3 bed detached new build is probably a D band, 3 bed semi/row house a C, 4 bed detached is an E, an "executive" 4 or 5 bed an F.

Your council tax funds a lot more than a road. It pays for libraries, parks, refuse collection, cemeteries, registrars for births, marriages, deaths, social care for both elderly, young and other vulnerable members of society, traffic management and yes, roads and bridges but not just the road outside your door.

I wouldn't want a new build with a management company, far too many things go wrong with them, there have been investigations into some of them for breach of contract plus some of the open green spaces required on new builds are sometimes people's gardens! So you don't own the very garden outside your front door.

I challenged mine - I was told its high value was because it ‘had double glazing and central heating’ which would have increased the value in 1991. Most properties now also have both but are a band or two lower because they didn’t have it 40 years ago, but have never been revalued . Amazingly, it was valued at exactly the bottom of the higher band For perspective we are band D in a 3 bed flat; 2 bed but equivalent floor space flats opposite are B, 4 bed semis on the same street are E. we also have to pay to maintain the green space and tarmaced area at the rear (which people from the big houses use to let their dogs go to the toilet and wash their cars, as their gardens back into it!)

You know Council tax covers more than just roads?
I assume the occupiers use the other roads in your Council area? Their bins are still collected.
I don't use the schools in my Council, or social services but still pay full Council tax.

Weapon of mass distraction isn't it.

People normally see the house and get invested before they find out the CT banding.

Councils can plonk higher values on them because there are normally few comparable houses around them. All part of the great british property rip off.

The other aspect of CT that I've always found to be a joke is that someone could extend their house by 50% and stay in the same band. Live there for decades, enjoy cheap council tax.

Then, when they move, it's likely to go through re-banding, and the new buyer gets to pay a higher rate.

I don't think it's right that people who can afford to build massive extensions should enjoy unnecessarily cheap council tax for years.

waits for someone to stomp in with a flame thrower and explain all the ways in which I am out of order

When my parents bought a new build in the 70s the roads on the estate were unadopted until the build was complete. When they moved into phase 2 they had to wait for phase 3 to finish.

Then the builder made good and the council adopted the estate roads - presumably after checking it met planning requirements and was in a new condition.

I can see cash strapped councils delaying this now given any opportunity. Plus completion of all phases down here is taking time as sales fall away and the builders aren't building as fast (if at all).

Another thing that I found funny was my parents have a restriction on not being allowed to park vehicles on their estate with lettering or advertising on! Like that's complied with nowadays!

@GoBonobo

Having heating and double glazing wasn't part of the valuation conaideration in 1991! It was far too big a job to be so detailed. Back then they sort of guessed bands from maps and then left it to homeowners to complain within a given timelimit.

My inlaws lived on a road of semis. Each had a strip of land as a garden. They were on the end and their garden was double in size but it fell away into a valley so the extra was more of a liability than adding value.

The valuers looked at the map and went C band for all the others and D band for theirs. They appealed and won to be put into a C band.

It's very interesting that my DS is looking at houses now in the range £250.- £270k and CT bands are A, B and C, even where there's no obvious current owner extensions.

my 2 bed flat is in band F, it's value would be £260-280k. I've just looked at a 3 bed house online on the market at offers over £665 and it's in E!! Our flats post-date the valuation date used for the banding and I'm convinced that they did it based on the value when built rather than back dating it as many older larger houses worth more are in lower bands.

That's literally insane.

According to various dodgy pricing tools, our rental is worth about 630k and it's a band E.

The system is absolutely broken.

@KievLoverTwo that's not uncommon either, I've found 4 bed houses in nice areas at over half a million as low as band C in our council area! I know some areas have come up a bit in recent years and house prices may have increased relatively more than others but it's still crazy!

Around where I live (north west town) new builds are a lot more expensive than an equivalent sized house. I have a biggish 100 yr old 3 semi with a huge garden and it's a band C. A new build of the same size would cost a lot more.