council tax band G & H to double

[StrawberryThief1930]

has anyone seen the rumours that the council tax rates for bands G and H are going to double?

I know everything is just rumours at the moment but im worried this one might stick. easy to implement in an existing system and doesn't require the revaluation of thousands of houses etc.

I'm about to buy a G band house. Seriously questioning whether we can afford it. The current council tax is £4k a year. so £8k a year. Over £300 a month more than we had budgeted. we have spreadsheets coming out of our ears trying to check we can afford this house. Buying with a 40% deposit. im sweating...

anyone have the same worries? or further thoughts?

We are talking about now.
Borrowing rates are not low.
I know several couples that have climbed the ladder and done well, Who owned beautiful £500,000 properties

And earn in excess of £120,000 each
it cannot be done now on £40,000 a year so as I say where do you think everybody else is living?

Believe me, borrowing rates are still low! But I get your point, it is the same point I am making, ordinary people can no longer buy 500k houses so all the average houses that were "worth" 500k (due to cheap borrowing) are no longer worth that.

However they seem keen on having their cake and eating it. They like it to be worth £500,000 when it comes to actually I don’t know what Advantage they could use that too but whatever let’s say,
On paper gains to remortgage
But they don’t want it to be worth £500,000 when it comes to Council tax
So which is it?

Good point, maybe people will now embrace "down-valuations" as it saves them council tax? I suspect that if they seriously gouge people with CT there will be a lot of Reform run councils by next summer.

House prices increasing doesn’t change the banding? The banding was set in 1991 or at the time the house was built. The £500k houses in Sevenoaks that were listed above are a d or an e, they aren’t a G because they are worth £500k.

New build banding is based on what a house of similar size etc would have been worth in 1991.

So paying less for a house has no impact other than reducing the price so potentially the mortgage. But then will also effect current and likely future value?

Unless all housing stock is going to be revalued this is all irrelevant

Fair points, you are correct, house value should have no bearing on how much CT you pay anyway, and the bands were set in the 90"s I am probably thinking about property tax which if introduced will be based on current value?

I listened to George Firth answering questions about Warwickshire CC today. Normally it’s quite comical listening to MPs under the pump but I actually felt really sorry for him. He genuinely was a lamb to the slaughter.
Things that were in black-and-white and writing were quoted back to him and he denied it. It was embarrassing.

Councils need to be slimmed right down to basic services, salaries cut at the top and unfortunately staff numbers may need cutting, we know which departments Reform will cut.......

except that when Reform took control of quite a small number of councils, their brave words disappeared and were not fulfilled in actions.

We're in the process of buying a band G property, and if this goes ahead we'll definitely be pulling out. I suppose in that scenario at least we'll have been lucky to have the option to pull out - I feel for those who don't have that option and would have to try and sell.

The most important thing for me is to have clarity about the situation now and in the future so that we can plan and live accordingly.

All Band G owners please write to your local labour MP and tell him we cannot afford this!
We are just normal working or retired people living in normal size homes!
Moving won't be an option as all our values will fall there will be a glut of G on the market all trying to escape and who will want to buy?

No one can know what may happen in the future for any properties
If Reeves goes for Some properties this year shes setting a president to go for others in the next budget.

Technically she’s not taxing income so she can say she’s kept to her promise

Agree
None of it makes long term economic sense but then Labours policies never do

Hope all those Labour voters remember this is what they voted for

Why is taxing unearned assets a problem?

Isn’t Council tax taken out of your earnings or pension that you already pay tax on?

house price inflation is not the fault of the owner, it is on paper, they are probably paying high council tax already for others who should be contributing but don’t

i think it is a problem especially when the government ministers are masters of not paying tax

Keeps coming back to wanting cake and eating it you don’t just get to pay income tax which goes into one pot And expect that to cover absolutely every aspect of your life for the rest of it.
I suppose we could do that, but people would get the hump about that as well if they didn’t own a 500 grand house but earnt to level that you would expect that they would.

Because a house isn"t like an ATM, many people living in big houses either inherited or bought many years ago, they don"t have the cash to bail out councils who made themselves broke by dabbling in commercial property and loans to other councils etc .If you want to tax actual earnings from property go after BTL, lodgers and AirBnB?

I strongly believe most voted to get rid of the Tories, Labour will be gone at the next election, it may even have to be an early election depending on how bad the economic fallout is?

It isn't a problem at all in principle. They do it in many countries. I would actually have some respect for Labour if they decided to impose a LVT on today's valuations and scrapped the SDLT. They could introduce this gradually, taper for those who had recently paid SDLT and have an option for those on lower incomes to delay the payments until their death but with added interest to discourage this option. If they did this in conjunction with reforming the whole tax system, especially the punching marginal bands and many other things, that would be even better.
They won't though. They will punish 'higher earners on £46,000+ and especially those on > £100,000, leading to even more of them leaving and even more deterioration, etc. They may hit those in band G&H but they won't bother to up date the bands. Basically, all recent governments impose poorly thought out taxes and have no strategy at all.

They are doing precisely that, but actually Property is an ATM.

And it’s mainly those who can least afford any kind of housing that are being expected to fund the ladder at the top
there needs to be a huge reform. I don’t have the answers. I really don’t but you cannot have somebody living in a £2 million house that’s on a state pension receiving top ups from the government whilst refusing to move selling their biggest asset that would fund their comfortable lives
They can’t make that decision for themselves then the government needs to force it

you cannot have somebody living in a £2 million house that’s on a state pension receiving top ups from the government whilst refusing to move selling their biggest asset that would fund their comfortable lives

It doesn't make any sense & is damaging productivity as younger people are subsidising the above.

I didn't vote for Labour but the Tories were absolutely terrible and the country visible deteriorated during their 14 years. How many good choices did voters have?
Labour were already in an impossible situation when they got voted in, which was inevitably going to worsen. Tax rises were always going to happen. They had already risen under the Tories. The Truss/BOE fiasco was a warning about the precarious nature of the UK economy. In fairness, they did try to make some very small cuts but experienced a massive backlash from pensioners and others screaming about the proposed WFA cut and how they were killing OAPs and then the Labour backbenchers voted against the relatively small cuts to benefits. Given this, they have probably given up on making cuts so bigger tax rises are needed in a desperate attempt to persuade markets that the UK government can pay its debts. The only question is which ones they will choose.

They had already risen under the Tories

A lot of posters overlook this.

That's the thing. The poorer younger generations are have been disadvantaged again and again and are still expected to fund wealthy pensioners living in very expensive homes. That is clearly unfair but I don't hear anywhere near as much screaming abut this. Funny that!