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!

My house is Band G is worth £350,000

I think most people agree it needs some sort of reform.

The problem is most people seem to think that the reform shouldn't involve them actually paying any more money.

"I’m not convinced it should be linked with house valuation at all. "

Neither am I, just because someone lives in a big house it doesn"t mean they have piles of cash lying around but there would have to be regional variations for service provision maybe, someone in Edinburgh with access to over 30 libraries might pay a bit more than someone in a town with one library that does a half day for half the week?

Ours is band G worth maybe £500k. I was originally worried, but what I read today was that they were only looking at the most expensive houses in bands F/G/H. Yesterday it was the 300,000 most expensive houses (probably all worth over £1.5 million). Today I read it was probably going to be the top 150,000 properties, probably all worth over £2m.

So now I'm a lot less worried!

I really hope you are right otherwise we are f*cked

https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2025/08/down-valuations-on-the-rise-as-valuers-turn-cautious/

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-15320507/Spike-London-homes-valued-banks-Rachel-Reeves-plots-new-mansion-tax.html

It is a strange tax. Is it not to pay for local services? Do council tax services cost less where houses are cheaper? I’m guessing not significantly. So it must lead to vast disparities between areas in terms of what’s raised.

I don’t know. It seems to me taxing income (presumably more than currently) and doing away with all these additional, post-tax taxes would make more sense. But I am not an economist.

Yes it often equates a small bungalow or house

even G is inconsistent

i would rather pay slightly more income tax in all honesty

It's a stupid system. Years ago as a result of a relationship breakdown I moved home and with my single person discount found myself paying more for a 2 bedroom flat than my old neighbours, a family of 4, were paying for their beautiful 3 bedroom 3 public room house. Theirs would have sold for more than a third more than my flat at the time.

I'm £260 a month now, again that's with single person discount, band F. The band is correct but with salaries in the private sector rising between 0 and 2% each year (the percentages you hear are not true of anyone I know, all experienced professionals), mortgages and rents up 20%, food bills 30-40%, utilities and council tax by RPI or more, people have nothing left to give. I say that as someone who defended the last income tax rise by the SNP. But there has to be a cut off point.

I hadn’t heard that it might apply to band F. Our house is worth £325 000 and a band F which I’ve never understood as although it’s 4 bed all the rooms are tiny and it’s smaller than next door which is a band E. Our council tax is already a huge amount of our income.

The highest band is H.

I’m g and my neighbour is h, other neighbours also g, some elderly who will really struggle, I’m already pissed off at the idea of it, my council tax is starting to look like a fucking mortgage and we have no street lights , no pavements, nothing round here, the roads aren’t maintained , typical country roads full of potholes, and my kids are grown up so no education. So I’m paying a few hundred a month to have my bins emptied,

I’m band E and social housing. I’ve asked for a reevaluation as I feel im a C or D.

Same. But the reports I was reading today were definitely talking about a fixed number of very expensive houses. It suggested that all band FGH will be revalued, but only the most expensive would incur the tax. And because of price disparity, it would be mad to put this high value property charge on a house worth only £350k just because it was in band G, like the one mentioned up thread.

Don't forget an average of 20% or more of your council tax is going towards public sector pensions.

The budget hasn't happened yet so nobody knows!

House prices vary hugely across the UK. Im a band G and my house is worth £400k.

I really don’t want lumped in with multi million pound homes down south.

I think it's mad. Another ill thought out plan from Rachel from customer service. If she orders houses that are F, G and H to pay double no one will ever be able to sell them. I'm in band E, but know if she hits on other 3 bands E will be next year. It's mad if she goes on a £15billion spending spree if she has to tax yet more to do so.

Looks like mansion tax threshold set at 2M but as part of this exercise VOA will re-evaluate F, G and H band houses. Meaning that a higher priced F band property would likely face one or two band upgrades.

No one knows what will happen. Wait for the budget.

Problem is that your £400k house outside London probably gives you a standard of living that a Londoner in a £1 million property could only dream of. London house prices are insane! Pokey flats on the top floor of Victorian conversions in Zone 2 go for £1million! Many Council and HA properties are valued around that figure.

Rachel needs to go, she isn’t fit for purpose

No, they cost more as the citizens are more likely to need to use state provided services, particularly care and education.

Think yourself lucky that isn’t in band G. Mine is the same - cookie cutter 4 bed worth similar. In band G. Our council tax is really expensive at £3600. If that were to double, ultimately we would have to think about selling. The best part of 8 grand a year on council tax is daylight robbery on a property like mine. It’s really gutting as our dc are u6th/uni and we have already started future proofing the house for if we get ill/infirm. Reeves should be in prison if she brings this tax in. 4 bed new or new ish builds like mine have small bedrooms and have kitchen diners. They are nothing remotely resembling mansions. As a band G payer, we are already contributing masses to the council - who provide almost nothing in return for thousands of pounds of money we’ve earned. That’s already been taxed.