My house is Band F council tax - what does this mean re Budget?

[housemonkey]

I love my house. It's four bedrooms detached newbuild. It's probably worth about £750,000 (not meant at all to be a boast, as I know lots of people's houses are worth a lot more!). It was put in Band F by the VOA (don't know how they assessed it). I love my house, but it seems insane that it will be hit by Rachel Reeves' mansion tax. At first, that was for houses over £2m! I complete agree that the council tax system needs revamping. But how do they actually define Band F houses? I can't find a clear explanation anywhere!

There is another massive thread on it with endless speculation.

The long and the short of it is no one yet knows, and even if they did know it's unlikely they would be able to do anything about it by Wednesday.

So probably best just to wait until Wednesday and find out.

The banding is based on an equivalent 1991 valuation (sometimes adjusted on resale for extensions etc). Most of the articles I’ve read suggest any additional tax will be for bands G and H, although I did read one article speculating it could apply to band F. It’s all speculation at the moment though; I wouldn’t be surprised if the government don’t know themselves yet.

Also, you can apply for rebanding if you think your house shouldn't be a band F.

Probably as a start I would look up similar houses in my area and see what band they are in. There is a government website and it is possible to find the council tax band for any house.

We're out in the country, so all the houses are different and hard to compare. I've seen the applying for rebanding thing. But I'm a bit worried about that, because the local farmer (and friend)'s house is Band E (and much nicer and bigger than mine) so worried I would just be stitching them up by using them as an example. The whole system seems mad. We only got assessed and moved in last year and it's utterly impossible for me to try and work out what on earth this house would have been worth in 1991!

The other thing is that we've also got a local persons restriction on ours, which would probably reduce the value of the house (but because we built it, it's never been on the market). Does anyone know if the VOA takes that into account?

There’s already lots of people saying that valuations all need re-doing. It’s a daft system. Personally, I’m not convinced it should be linked with house valuation at all. The same house in different local areas could be paying different council tax, but they’re using the same services. I don’t think there is a perfect system.

I think the bands are/were defined by value originally. But the big questions is who defines the value of a house?
The government?
The estate agent?
The seller?
The buyer?
The LA?

If an EA says a house is worth £300k, and I, the seller, decide to put it on the market at £325k, and then a prospective buyer offers me £275k, what's the house actually worth?

Also very worried about this. Our house is band F. Worth about £630k. Our mortgage is going up by £200 next month to £2200pm, council tax is already £360pm. Everything has crept up so much. We don’t have spare money or savings.

Instead of having the guts to break their manifesto and impose a small income tax rise this government has got themselves into deep shit. They are probably going to nibble away at a lot of different taxes, thereby inciting rebellion from multiple interest groups. They clearly have no plan for growing the economy and are in complete chaos. Rachel from Accounts has already scored multiple own goals so what can you expect from someone who lied on their CV and blundered as a landlord.

Op, you’ve hit the nail on the head, the highest band is G, so a home currently worth over £1 million and 4 beds is paying the same as a 10 bedroom mansion worth £10 million. I believe with new houses council tax is banded by the floor plans and buying cost. So more up to date than our house which is still based on 1991 figure.

I would imagine there would be all sorts of challenges if they start dragging Band F in, not least because there will be numerous examples of extended and remodelled Band D and E houses that could well be worth more. Unlike PAYE which gets taken at source, they rely on council tax being paid so people can just cancel their direct debits and pay the original amount while they challenge the increase - what will they do then?...throw all those tax payers in prison for non-payment now they have let all the rapists and sex offenders out early

would imagine there would be all sorts of challenges if they start dragging Band F in, not least because there will be numerous examples of extended and remodelled Band D and E houses that could well be worth more.

Again, not fair if I spent £££ on extending my house, why should I then have to pay more council tax too?

The assumption is that people who live in bigger houses are better off, but that isn't always the case.

It's esp frustrating because the thing that's most likely to have added value is all the eco stuff we've done! (solar panels, air source, huge amounts of insulation, triple glazing) which was all really expensive, but we decided worth doing because of energy bills and generally being the right thing to do. But if that's the only thing that pushes us into Band F (and that's literally the only reason I can think of) then stupid us!!

The banding is a joke. I live in a very average 3 bedroom house in London. Band F. My friend lives in an almost identically sized house in the Home Counties and hers is a Band D. She uses more services than me as there are 4 adults living in her house. I never really understood why people were so outraged about the poll tax. It seems fair to me that the amount paid should be proportionate to the number of adults in the household, not to a notional value of the property.

I bought my new build for 400k which is an F. There are houses in my town over a million that are also an F and there are houses that are in the 500k - 750K which are an E. It’s a stupid farce of a system and I’m dreading the budget.

VOA seems to want sales data. Of the ten houses in our postcode, only two have sold in the last twenty years (and one of those is massive and gorgeous and def highest banding and therefore totally irrelevant to my maths). There is no sales data. FFS.

Ours is a Band G as it looks grand from the outside, from inside it still has 80s bathrooms and kitchen, and ideally needs rewiring etc. DH is a farmer and we never have lots of cash. We already pay £370 per month council tax without the big income. We can't sell it as part of farm, and surrounding by farm sheds.

Not everyone in a big house is a cash cow.

It works fine if you're looking at a row of terraces, but it just doesn't work at all otherwise.

Did you see the thread on here about income tax going up? People want improvements but absolutely do not want to pay for them. Labour are screwed whatever they do because nobody wants to pay anything more. Instead it’s easier to demonise others.

I'd wait til Weds and try not to worry beforehand. Imho I don't think they'll extend this tax down to band F.

Not sure we are in a similar situation. Do they take into account how expensive an area you live in? Like for 750k in a very expensive area you might have a 4 bed if you’re lucky but up north that goes further in some places.

I am feeling physically sick about this. My husband and I work ourselves to the bone. We have no support at nursery so paying about 1000 pounds a month. No child benefit. We already pay a huge amount of tax. We couldn’t afford more children. Everyday is a drain working so hard and our jobs are under constant threat of redundancy.

We finally stretched ourselves to buy our forever home after years of being sensible and ploughing as much as we could into savings. Now our council tax might go up, our pensions raided, what little benefit we could get from salary sacrifice could be ended. Companies are sending work abroad left right and centre as it’s cheaper, uni fees are ridiculous. What future is there for our children?

Meanwhile benefits are going up? Wtaf this government makes me feel sick. For the first time today I’m genuinely looking at other countries we could move to. I’m sick of being a cash cow for other people and the country is turning to absolute shit and on the verge of imploding.

It means absolutely nothing, except that you're another who's fallen for all the scaremongering about how painful this budget is going to be.

Some things may be hard to swallow, but it's really not going to be everything the press has told you.

The last time a government tried a comprehensive reform to council tax was under Thatcher- which went really well didn’t it?

No one wants to pay more. Those on the highest rates of tax - property and income- wail it’s not fair, why should they pay even more for other people.
Those at the bottom end wail they can’t afford anything let alone less benefits and more tax.
Those in the middle wail they are being squeezed unfairly.

No one knows what will happen in the budget, despite all the rumours in the media.

I am interested to know how this will work for Council and HA tenants. I live on a street which is half and half. Houses pretty much identical. Private Houses sell for around c £1 million. So will the HA tenants have to pay based on the value of the houses? Or will there be a two tier system?
Some HA tenants are elderly or not in work so do not pay. Others are very wealthy. Some of the private owners (often through right to buy in the 80s)
are old and have no assetts other than their increasingly dilapidated homes so will just be unable to pay more.

Not really. I live in an old, small terraced house in the NW, band D. My house is worth £250k. Yet I'm paying over £2.3k of council tax a year, £300 more than my sister who lives in Crouch End in a £1M victorian terrace flat (also band D). Proportionally the amount of council tax on our household is huge compared to their household.

It's a strange tax.