Council Tax once you've moved in?

JustAnotherSaver

We picked up the keys to our first home yesterday. We know that we can/should contact the gas & electricity suppliers to give them the readings (or i believe some people just wait for the first bill to come to 'the occupier'). Do we need to do anything by way of the council tax, or will we get some sort of letter through the door telling us what's what?

Torry_Quine

You need to contact the local council and let them know

Knalchemist

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

We picked up the keys to our first home yesterday. We know that we can/should contact the gas & electricity suppliers to give them the readings (or i believe some people just wait for the first bill to come to 'the occupier'). Do we need to do anything by way of the council tax, or will we get some sort of letter through the door telling us what's what?

You should contact the electric, gas and water suppliers to give actual meter readings, otherwise they will be estimated and you could en dup paying more.

You will need to call the Council, or go on line and fill out a form to state when you moved in, and who is living there etc.

Jonboy_1984

Be aware that you will also need to register for electoral roll and this is a separate process to registering for council tax. ( I would also research the "edited electoral Roll" and make a choice before doing this).

mjm3346

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

We picked up the keys to our first home yesterday. We know that we can/should contact the gas & electricity suppliers to give them the readings (or i believe some people just wait for the first bill to come to 'the occupier')

You need to get on to the energy suppliers with readings and switch tariffs/supplier (you will almost certainly be paying a high price at the moment)

JustAnotherSaver

Thanks guys.

We took photos of the electricity meter & gas meter readings with a time & date stamp the moment we went in.

Wasn't aware about water though. I do recall the survey saying that we weren't on a water meter, but do they still have meters all the same? I'd guess not, but what you've said has made me wonder & it's free to ask....?

Regards electoral roll - we're not actually living there yet & we've no idea when we will. We're still living at my mums & we're only at the new house to strip wallpaper at the moment. It needs some work doing to the walls (damp & seemingly a half job by a previous owner, but not necessarily THE previous owner). We want all this sorted before we move in.

So since we're only there to decorate (or prep for decorating) would you just leave it for now until we move in proper?

Savvy_Sue

I'd contact the council NOW re council tax, as they may give you an 'empty' discount for a limited period. Since they may want to call round and check the property really is empty (no furniture), it's best to do this ASAP. Note that they may do a visual inspection from outside, if that's a possibility (obviously not easy in a top floor flat, for example!)

Also if the previous occupants haven't said they've moved out, or weren't paying (!) you want to establish your moving in date sooner rather than later.

Utilities won't give you a discount, but if the previous inhabitants didn't contact suppliers and give final readings, the sooner you give your initial readings the better. And even though you can only estimate bills, you might want to shop around for a new supplier.

JustAnotherSaver

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I'd contact the council NOW re council tax, as they may give you an 'empty' discount for a limited period. Since they may want to call round and check the property really is empty (no furniture), it's best to do this ASAP. Note that they may do a visual inspection from outside, if that's a possibility (obviously not easy in a top floor flat, for example!)

I dare say they don't work Sunday's, so can they be contacted online? As we're both back at work on Monday. There's no furniture in there right now, so no concerns there.

Also if the previous occupants haven't said they've moved out, or weren't paying (!) you want to establish your moving in date sooner rather than later.

Thing is, we won't know when we're going to officially move in. The living room walls need to get treated for damp before any decorating gets started (well, we can still decorate upstairs), but we wont be moving in until the house is finished, but when that is i don't know.

Utilities won't give you a discount, but if the previous inhabitants didn't contact suppliers and give final readings, the sooner you give your initial readings the better. And even though you can only estimate bills, you might want to shop around for a new supplier.

Do people generally do that (switch supplier) virtually immediately? We're with British Gas for both electricity & gas. Is it advisible we ditch & switch now? (Considering we'll be looking to go on a fixed plan regardless of whether we stay with BG or go elsewhere).


One i haven't thought of is the telephone. I don't think we need to get this sorted until we move in & then actually need the phone. I know the previous owners were with orange. I don't know their telephone number though. How do you sort that? Just go to a landline provider (BT, Sky, TalkTalk etc) & say i want to be connected at this address & that's it? Do they give you a number then?

Savvy_Sue

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I dare say they don't work Sunday's, so can they be contacted online? As we're both back at work on Monday.

Not knowing which council you'd be paying tax to, I can't say for certain, but I'd be gob-smacked if you couldn't since both national and local govt are driving us all to do everything online.

30 seconds found where I'd report a chance of circs where I live, it took a little longer for the town where I used to live, the key thing is knowing who you'd be paying.

Also should you ever need to speak to them, you may well find they answer the phones past 5 pm, again it's all part of the service culture / accessibility thing.

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Thing is, we won't know when we're going to officially move in. The living room walls need to get treated for damp before any decorating gets started (well, we can still decorate upstairs), but we wont be moving in until the house is finished, but when that is i don't know.

Not currently relevant: you are liable for the CT from the day you take the property over to the day you hand it over to someone else. Where I live (I've just checked, again in 30 seconds), you'd get a 10% discount for six months if the property is unfurnished and unoccupied, then 5% for another 18 months, and then - wait for it - you pay 200% if you leave it empty after that.

So your liability has started now: the sooner you tell them, the sooner you can start paying, and the smaller your payments can be. If you wait, you could be asked to pay the whole amount up front, from the day you moved in until 31st March next year.

And again, if the previous occupants did not tell the council when they moved out, OR they were in arrears, you could potentially have a struggle to establish when your liability started - not that it's hard to prove, but do you want the hassle, in six months time, of proving that you only moved in on X date when the council has arrears dating back a year before that?

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Do people generally do that (switch supplier) virtually immediately? We're with British Gas for both electricity & gas. Is it advisible we ditch & switch now? (Considering we'll be looking to go on a fixed plan regardless of whether we stay with BG or go elsewhere).

I have no idea what people generally do, but read Martin's articles: if you want to go on a fixed plan you may need to act fast to get the best deals, the fixed plans in six months time may well be more expensive.

I know it's more difficult when you don't know for certain what your bills will be, but the comparison sites do let you say what sort of property it is, how large it is, and give you guesstimates based on that. Also some of the fixed rate deals don't actually tie you in, so if you find next year that you could do better, you ditch and switch again.

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

One i haven't thought of is the telephone. I don't think we need to get this sorted until we move in & then actually need the phone. I know the previous owners were with orange. I don't know their telephone number though. How do you sort that? Just go to a landline provider (BT, Sky, TalkTalk etc) & say i want to be connected at this address & that's it? Do they give you a number then?

All I know about landlines is that there's sometimes a lead time between saying "please can I have a phone line?" and the phone line being installed, so keep that in mind. If you DO put one in quickly and you've got a lot of tradesmen in and out, you might want to unplug the phone when you're not there.

You could take a phone round and plug it into the socket and see if the line is still active, btw. Also look at the sockets and see whose logo is on them, you might find there's more than one (we have both BT and Virgin sockets at home, although the BT have never worked for us.)

But again, you shop around and think about what you need: we have a package which includes landline and BB and some TV: I see someone's offering a package with no landline now, which would suit DH very nicely because no-one ever phones him on the landline, whereas I have quite a few friends who call me who don't have mobiles and probably have some free calls landline to landline.

JustAnotherSaver

Thanks Sue.

It looks like we don't get such a discount as the search i did says it was stopped in March this year http://www.lancaster.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/council-tax/

The missus says she found a form online to fill out that informs them of a change but i can't find it & she's not here for me to ask at the moment so i'll wait on that. Might even just call them tomorrow, but it'd have to be after work (beyond 6pm) unfortunately.

She did tell me British Gas are open until 8pm so we can give them a bell tomorrow & give them our readings. These readings will be from last Friday though, so they hopefully will accept them, or they may want the readings from the day the phone call is made for all i know. We've used no gas though & very little electric as we've generally been there stripping wallpaper through the day with last night for an hour being an exception.

p00hsticks

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Wasn't aware about water though. I do recall the survey saying that we weren't on a water meter, but do they still have meters all the same? I'd guess not, but what you've said has made me wonder & it's free to ask....?

Even if you've no meter, you'll still need to contact the water suppliers to give them your details and arrange payments