cynic-al - MemberNot asking for sympathy LOL.
Any lawyer that says LOL is worth hiring.
The good thing about this sort of forum is the you get a variety of feedback which you can the choose to follow or not,can anyone tell me how to copy and paste on here?
You pay tax per property, not per person. Yeah the rules have changed, probably because the government is stiffing the LAs for every penny they can and the LAs need to generate more money to keep the libraries open, provide care for the elderly, help kids under the poverty line eat a hot dinner at school for free etc etc etc.
Central government cuts funds to local government. Local government is under the cosh of a council tax freeze...so local government has to pass on the cost somewhere.
Best thread for a while.
you can always sell the second property if it smarts so much?
He doesn't own a second property though...... So I'm pretty sure that would be illegal.
It does seem a bit sad that someone restoring a house to habitable condition, especially for use as their own primary residence, is having to pay the full amount of council tax. I would have thought the council would be encouraging folk to help increase and improve the housing stock.
How can it be decided if a house is in habitable condition? I agree that this situation seems harsh but 2nd homes should pay full CT even if not lived in or the 1st home is rented. We need explicit rules, never right to leave things to opinion as that leads to people being treated differently.
The good thing about this sort of forum is the you get a variety of feedback which you can the choose to follow or not
Yep.
You need to be pretty thick skinned posting as not every one is going to side with you....
I agree with mudshark. It is a little unfair on the OP but if there was any kind of loophole then the developers would exploit it. In reality its only a few hundred quid which is a chunk of money but a pretty small amount when it comes to buying and doing up a house.
FFS, this is just getting argumentative for the sake of it. I'm not talking about 500 homes, I'm talking about 1.
And if 500 people do the same thing, we have a problem, so quite rightly the council is using a penalty to discourage it. Good on them.
CT is a charge on a property to contribute to the public services in your area. It's paid by the owner or occupier of a property. OP owns or occupies 2 properties so pays twice. Its another cost to factor in. It's expensive yes. But it's not unfair.
scotroutes - Member
It does seem a bit sad that someone restoring a house to habitable condition, especially for use as their own primary residence, is having to pay the full amount of council tax.
On the flip side, having to pay CT discourages folk from owning uninhabited properties, which is a good thing given the shortage of housing stock.
When does "not how I want it" become uninhabitable? Most bathroom/kitchen fitters would struggle to survive if they insisted the customer leave the building for the duration of the works due to it being uninhabitable.
My local council consulted on the changes and the vast majority of people voted to remove all exemptions apart from single person discount. Rarely seen so many people in agreement with a council proposal.
Perhaps they should do an uninhabited property discount based on what they don't do for you if there is no one living there (bins, social care, errrr) and what they still do (street sweeping/lighting, local road maintenance, monitoring residents parking if applicable) or could do if you really needed them (pest control, and i forget whether fire and polis are LA funded in any way).
Fine then! I'll just suck it up.
*scuttles back under pile of plaster & lats*
Forgot to mention earlier OP, but you are going to keep the bar aren't you? 😀 my 80's rockin next door neighbours had one with labatts beer towels and all sorts. It was ace!
Councils are struggling for money so using every loophole they can. I suppose you are lucky they don't try and surcharge you eg 150% as property is unoccupied. They are removing/reducing most discounts. I pay nearly £2,000 for a two bedroomed flat in Hampshire.
@cynical_al having to pay CT on an unoccupied property wouldn't make any difference to my thought process, I suppose that means its reasonable to charge it 😥 I do think that by removing the discounts the councils are encouraging fraud as youl'l see an increase in properties declared single person occupied.
@mudshark second homes used to get a discount (50%) as logic was they where not using services like education, hospitals, refuse collection and the owners where paying full ct elsewhere. However in current situation of councils needing revenue it's reasonable to charge full price.
OP: The LA have had the power to do this in Wales for a number of years. As the owner of a second home (inherited not bought myself) this a shame but frankly it's fair enough.
Although we're only there 20% of the year we still want street lights, waste collections, policing, etc.
Difficult one, in which you would hopefully think the council would have some kind of qualifier in place to stop this happening, ie you get a 3 month grace period from buying if you can prove you are paying on a second residence
So going against the grain on this one, I'm with the OP.
How much would it cost to implement a scheme? To check and verify who is/isn't telling porkies? How many admin? Who pays for the scheme? Whats to stop everyone jumping on the 3 months free? Would it cost less than £80 per applicant per month?
