Council Tax vs Service Charge

poppysarah

paddedjohn wrote: »

Ive always thought the poll-tax was the most fair system. My dad lived on his own in a large house(all payed for by hard graft) and he had to pay more in rates than the family of 5 adults living next door. It doesnt take a genius to work out who used the most services

Poll tax would have meant he was paying 1/5

It's council tax that means they'd pay the same.

I think poll tax was fairer - it just meant people were paying a lot more than they wanted to... but bills never go down and council tax is a huge bill!

PasturesNew

In my last house, my neighbour had about 24 people in his house. Assuming £1000/house in my row it worked out at:
Next door: 3 adults. £333 each
Me: £1000 less 25% off, £750 each
Next door: 4 adults, £250 each
Next one: 4 adults and a baby, £200 each (or £250 depending how you view it)
Next one: 24 adults, £42 each

Spreading it by poll tax across that lot would have meant about £140 each

PasturesNew

Anyway, the service charge you pay for in flats is for:

Maintenance of the grounds, grass, driveways, parking bays, bin storage areas, any special bins provided communally, communal lighting inside, communal lighting outside. And overhead admin for doing that.

Owning a house I'd have to pay for all that if I had the grounds/facilities, except I'd not pay an admin fee as it'd be me doing it - and things would get done less often as it'd be me paying for it directly.

clutton_2

i think many here have forgotten a crucial part of the poll tax scenario... which was that stay-at-home mums with no income also were supposed to pay poll tax..... how fair was that ?

chris_m

Don't they use the Council's services, then?

With the Council Tax system I have to pay 50% more than my neighbours in an identical flat - how fair is that?

G_M

The village where I live has no street lights. I WANT A DISCOUNT!

glottalstop

Ok, fair enough, no joy. Thanks for all your comments.

This wasn't meant to be an argument for or against the poll tax, but an interesting range of views.

As for whether service charges overlap council tax, I guess not but it is worth thinking about where it is leading us. Twenty years ago a housing development would have created roads and common spaces which would then be maintained by the council. Nowadays it is much more often the case that developments are enclosed as private estates. So, the real winners are the council and the management company with expensive charges ?

casper_g

glottalstop wrote: »

As for whether service charges overlap council tax, I guess not but it is worth thinking about where it is leading us. Twenty years ago a housing development would have created roads and common spaces which would then be maintained by the council. Nowadays it is much more often the case that developments are enclosed as private estates. So, the real winners are the council and the management company with expensive charges ?

It's certainly something to be aware of when buying a property. It's probably still more of a flats vs. houses thing though, isn't it? I've lived on a couple of modern housing estates where the roads etc. were all definitely adopted by the council, but there are obvious reasons why flats should be leasehold, with service charges.

TeamLowe

its up to the people building the estates whether or not the streets they are on get adopted by the Council when they are finished, as to get them adopted by the Council they have to be up to a certain standard of drains, road surfaces etc.
obviously not having to pay for the works needed for that standard + service charges (if the builders stick around and have something to do with the management company)= a lot more money for the builder

usagirl_2

We pay service charges to a management company - and our house is freehold. Probably not that unusual in London, but a bit of a pain when it comes to selling; we've had to pay £350 to the man. co. just for an 'information pack' to send to the solicitors, and we don't even get a copy! Tends to hold up proceedings for a while, too. However, the charges are very reasonable, much less than the leaseholders in the flats pay on our 'estate'.