Have recently moved into a house with a ground floor extension that was built around 20 years ago.

I have received notification that my Council Tax banding has changed because of this. The extension was done by the folk I purchased from.

My solicitor never advised me that this would happen but I knew it would cos I managed to find out through the original planning application.

What I don’t understand is how can the Council Tax band change when an extension has been in place for 20 years.

Does anyone have any experience of this please?

As always, thank you so much. 🙂

The council tax banding doesn’t change until the house/flat is sold

The council tax banding doesn’t change until the house/flat is sold

This – but maybe it should have come up on the search carried out by your solicitor before completion?

In official jargon “When a property is improved (e.g. an extension is built), legislation prevents the VOA from increasing the existing band of that property until there is a relevant transaction”

http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/CouncilTax/increasesFollowingImprovements.html

Thanks for the replies.

One could argue that local Councils are missing out on additional income by not changing the band as soon as any alterations have been completed.

Yes, I thought my solicitor should have known this.

Won’t bother appealing but do consider that the system is wrong.

I don’t think the normal property searches would pick up this information specifically. It’s all available to anyone on the VOA website, properties are marked as “Band Review Pending” if the band is likely to change when there’s a relevant transaction.

Not much you can do about the banding but I’d be asking my solicitor a few searching questions though. To be not told there was a rebanding is pretty poor.

The solicitor wouldn’t know there was a band amendment. Properties that are improved are noted, the voa website marks them as being ‘pending review’ and these are only reasessed once a transaction has been completed. Before this you can only find out that a review is pending, not whether there will be a change in banding nor what the new band will be.

Won’t bother appealing but do consider that the system is wrong.

I don’t suppose you’ll be the last person to say that about a particular system of taxation.

The solicitor should know there was a band amendment – you can check a property band on the VOA website, and there is a marker on any that are due to be changed.

In any event, the solicitor should know that council tax bands are not increased when the extension/alteration is done, but is changed after the property is sold – you don’t get done for improving the value of your property, but the purchaser will be.

So I would suggest that you might want to ask your solicitor some questions.

(Not an area that I am directly involved with, but I’m across the office from the guys who are, and I hear this conversation a lot on the phone!)

and there is a marker on any that are due to be [strike]changed[/strike] reviewed

FTFY

ebygomm – sorry.

Just wondering if we work across the office from each other….