anyone any idea how the bands work and the rates were originally worked out?

Currently i am band A and have the pleasure of donating £940 a year for pot holes and partial rubbish collection, this is in Cheltenham, as i might move to Shotton i thought i would have a look and see what Flintshire charges, £700 a year again band a. I thought it is a poorer area so maybe that is why it is less?

On this theme i looked at Westminster, and it is only £460 a year, again band A.

So how the F*** does it work?

you bend over and they make you take it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3525115.stm

Sums it up nicely.

it doesn’t, like most tax you pay for stuff you don’t really use

What they really hope is that you will pay the C Tax and then pay for all the things you want but they don’t provide so the bill looks smaller. As for roads they only seem to fix stuff at the end of the FY when they have to spend money like the F’ked system it is.

The bands came into play in something like 1992. They were based on an approximate valuation of your property at that time. I would google the subject to find out the exact dates and what the valuation thresholds were.

If you look on the Nationwide Building society web site there is a house price calculator. You can put in two dates, one when you knew the value and the other, a date that you want a valuation for. If you had a valuation recently, stab in those details and ask for a valuation when the bandings were determined. That should give you a rough idea.

I have no idea how they arrived at the valuations when property was close to the thresholds. There are some errors e.g. a friend of mine doubled the size of his terraced house, but they classified him at the pre-extension value. Lucky him, until they realise their mistake.

The amount of council tax you pay does not corrulate with how nice an area is. There are some councils who preside over really crappy areas that spend spend spend – social housing, social issues etc etc. Another posh area might have a lot less of this and so council tax would be cheaper. It just comes down to what the local authority is used to spending, not neccessarily how nice the area is.

have a look on moneysaving expert

Details on there as to how to get your house re- banded if applicable, basically there was a system to sort out banding that involved estate agents driving down streets and applying values without looking at houses properly.

it doesn’t, like most tax you pay for stuff you don’t really use

Tax in this country has never been ring fenced, you’ve never been able to pay for what you use.

I work in the Council Tax dept. of my council.
The bands were set in April 1991 based on the value of your property. You can ask the Valuation Office to come to reassess your banding if you feel it is incorrect although it will only usually be rebanded (up or down) if there has been a material change to the property (extension to the property) or the surrounding areas (an industrial estate has been built round the back of it for instance) although even now, a few properties on occasion are being rebanded as being incorrectly banded as of 1991. NOT always in the residents favour though and it IS backdated either way.
Council tax pays for all of the councils services and is not service specific. I have an automated response for the moaners who “don’t have children, why am I paying for schools” etc. Internally it’s “FERK OFF”, externally it’s a patient explanation of the system and a cheery suggestion they approach they’re democratically elected councillor to air their grievances further. According ti the surgery attendance figures, not many do.
Valuations were carried out and set in 91 within set % boundaries rather than specific financial figures. Also, individual councils will have to pay differing amounts to differing companies for it’s services, have more or less council tax payers to service users and differing amounts of properties in the various bands and as such, has to set amounts for each band BUT the original band boundaries were pre determined.
I’ve just noticed the comment about the guy with the extension that has not been rebanded. Looks like the Planing and C/tax dept have a communication problem. I would strongly recommend that the person who owns the property gets in touch and tells C/tax as soon as poss.. When tit comes out that the banding needs ot be increased, they’;ll backdate it to when the work was completed, he will be rebilled and as it is past years, he’ll be allowed the maximum of 3 years to pay the backdated amount. If his local council is anything like ours, they’ll not muck about with obtaining a Liability Order id he defaults on any Special Payment ARrangment (SPAR) that they set for him, In fact, if they are like our council, they won;t even allow him a SPAR and just rebill. It gets to Recovery (court summons) a while heap quicker if there isn’t a pesky SPAR getting in the way. I issued 712 Court Summons; last week. and two c/tax defaulters are about to receive Committal Pending Notices as their accounts have been returned from bailiffs as Nulla Bona (no retrievable goods of value).
There is some desperate meetings taking place this week as the council would rather not be in the news for sending residents to prison if they can help it.
Going for a bike ride now.
Have a nice Sunday all 🙂

On this theme i looked at Westminster, and it is only £460 a year, again band A.

IIRC Westiminster has some rather odd taxation because either it gains vast revenue from the other institutes in the square mile, or because of some special dispensation. Can’t remember the details though.

MRNO, as theres no prison in Shotton, what the hell have you done to have to move from Cheltenham to Shotton,a really socially depressed area, all cheap shops and industrian estates, there is a good bike shop, Deeside cyclcle, run by a nice cycling chappie, and a decent road network to get you out in the country,theres also a few sustrans off road as in flat tracks, for the roadie types.

Dont mention the white elephant of a bridge, goes from noiwhere to nowhere at 70mph, and lots of roundabouts on it.

Not sure how many band A properties there are in Westminster!

I work for Corus, i guess the only employer in Shotton? As part of the restructuring they plan, my job is going from Tewkesbury to Shotton. I can move or take redundancy.

At this moment i haven’t made a choice, and until May i won’t know the whole story so won’t be able to make a definitive decision.

As for living in Shotton, Conah’s quay, queensferry, etc, don’t think so, maybe try and find somewhere by the sea out towards Holywell or beyond and commute. Just got to think what the other half wants as well.