Question regarding council tax on new build

dgtazzman

Hi,

I have a quick question regarding council tax when moving into a new build.

We are hoping to move in around the 12th of May, so will have paid council tax on our rental property of April and May. As the builders are late completing our new house, they have agreed to compensate us for some losses, so far being a month's rent and some extra conveyancing fees incurred due to the delay.

I would like to know if for the new build, we will be liable for the entire year's council tax, of if it will be prorated for 10 months, starting from the 1st of June, with an eye of adding a month's worth of council tax to our compensation list if we will have to pay for the entire year on the new house.

I have been googling, but so far the answer eludes me, so hopefully somebody here can help.

I don't want to be greedy, but with the delay and the situation with our mortgage offer, things are getting very stressful for us, so I also don't want to let the builder get away too lightly with a nearly 2,5 month delay in the build.

PasturesNew

You pay CT from the day the house is yours. Not before.

jjlandlord

Also remember that council tax liability is worked out on a daily basis.

E.g. you said you will be moving out on 12th May, this means that you do not owe council tax 'for May' but just until the 12th.

the_blacksmith

Your liable from the time you move in, not for the whole year. If you move in June, your liable from June to end of March, then the new year one starts (2015). If its a new build property you may find that the banding hasn't been done yet & it takes a while for them to sort out so my advice is ring the Council Tax department & ask them to set up a 'temporary' account for you. That way you wont end up with a lump sum bill in a few months time when they finally sort it. The temporary account money will just be transferred over to the new account.

camptownraces

If you move on 12 May, you should pay CT on your rental property until that date, and on the purchased property from that date.

Councils will calculate exactly how many days of CT are due. If you are due a refund on the rental property's CT, you should ask for it after you move out.

In the likely event that you occupy both properties on the same day, expect to pay two lots of CT just for that day.

dgtazzman

I will be liable for the rental property till the end of May as has been agreed with the LL, so I guess I'll be paying for 2 properties for half a month, but with the clarification given, I see no grounds to chase the builders for CT as there is no quantifiable loss, the situation would have been the same if they had completed on time...

Thanks for the help, nice tip on the temp account, was going to check with the developer later as 2 houses of the same type were completed last month, was hoping they'd have a better idea of the banding now.

Just stressing like mad right now, trying to get them to push for completion around a week before what they last told us, or our mortgage offer will expire and we have to get a new application going with just 3 or 4 weeks to go. They were lax about it, saying we could get an extension on our offer, but on checking with our sols, that is a no-go in our circumstances. Got our sols piling on pressure on the builder's sols now as this delay could have at least partially been avoided.

They stopped work on our house for a period of around 3 weeks to finish some other houses off before the end of their financial year in March and they stopped it again for around a week before Easter in order to finish off the show homes in time for the Easter weekend, so that's 4 weeks worth of delay that could have been avoided, which might end up costing us (or I should say, the builders, as we will be recovering any additional costs made from them) dearly.