Daydream fund challenge part 4

ferretkeeper

Not quite sure how you'd fare on this one CTC...I contacted the valuations office, and this was a little while ago on the holiday let so criteria might have changed.

One conversation I had with them more recently was about home - my idea was to separate our house and garden from the yard and land. So the house remains our home and under council tax, and the land and buildings go to business rates.

for agriculture rates would be zero, and my other crafty activities were so small I'd probably be under any minimum threshold.

Main reason behind it was to basically devalue the house (on paper) by removing the land and reduce council tax that way, which is absolutely extortionate in our county, but they were having none of it!:rotfl:

best to be honest about what you're doing, esp as the ranch will be your main dwelling eventually, BTW are you still planning to sell your house this summer? It's gone all quiet next door...

And planning is a different matter again, our planning officer said we don't need change of use for the other house being a holiday let as it's essentially still a house being used as a house.

Every department and agency everywhere has different definitions and opinions on what you're doing, insurance is a law unto itself! it's not easy to get to the bottom of it, or avoid shooting yourself in the foot! That's why I always keep my questions hypothetical, I never say what I am doing or intend to do...ultimately the advice often shapes decisions anyway.

The up side of keeping the house and land together is that we can offset half our mortgage interest against any profit from the business, as the land represents half the value of the property. And on balance that is worth a lot more than halving our council tax.

Now if only we could make that sort of profit we'd be quids in :rotfl:

COOLTRIKERCHICK

after thinking about it, its not worth faffing , to try and find out,


TBH FK.. I don't think putting your land ( think you said it was around 5 acres) as a separate identity, as there are a lot of properties up your way with land and huge back gardens etc... plus the land is rough land..


its like with us,, being totally realistic if we wanted to just sell off the land it would only be worth a few grand at most, as you could built on it, and I should imagine its the same with yours, its the house that holds the value with us, and again with you.. ok the marriage of the two, rough ground and a good property add a little bit more than if sold separately.


so I honestly don't think trying to spate them will save much money..


we went to see a few places up your way, when we are nosing lol... and there did seem to be a distinct price range x for terrace, x for x council, and x with land and very large gardens..


how did you get on with planning ?? wasn't there something you were appealing??


hope it went well.. as that must be stressful..

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Sorry typos using my not pad and it does auto correct thing lol

alfie_1

hi all.... sunny but cool day again here.
I am shattered , what with dealing with hoss dramas, mums business , driving jobs and being at work this week..........


FK... are you classed as agricultural or commercial ? if agri, do you have to show that a high % of income is from the land /animals?
with our holiday let, we had to be registered as a holiday let purely for health and safety checks etc and that we had insurance for public liability with lets. our insurance would have been null and void otherwise. do you not have to declare house use ? im being thick I think but when I had my shop the commercial rates are huge compared to normal council tax.. we paid CT as the annex took no more than 4 people .
im assuming you have no mortgage on house 2 or youde have to pay a higher rate..

alfie_1

off to see friend tomorrow so we can confirm/pay for holiday :j:j

lostinrates

Hello!!!!

I was in London on Tuesday, long day left me really whacked. Slept right through yesterday, oops! Today started to get back on track and back to lawn cutting.


I've been looking at eucalyptus again. I'm really drawn to some of them. Where the ivy failed I'm wondering if some coppiced gums might be a lovely idea.....great smell, structure, bark interest.....year round interest.

choille

I have Eucalyptus, but it looks a bit sparse after the icy wind. I think it deters midgies, but probably not - nothing does apart from napalm.

The bedroom is all plaster boarded & the hall is getting there.

The plumber has issues but I do hope he comes tomorrow as it's getting awkward in the kitchen = having a bath & stuff in there & not being able to get the units in nor worktop.

Cold today but got in a nother row of tatties. But me back is beggered now.

Davesnave

alfie_1 wrote: »

off to see friend tomorrow so we can confirm/pay for holiday :j:j

You've earned it! :A

I've obviously not earned an easy life yet. Had both plumber & builder here to advise today, with plumber returning tomorrow.

The first thing the plumber said was, "That chase out for the pipes isn't deep enough!" :doh:

So, it was back to the old angle grinder again this afternoon. Not a long job, but incredibly messy, and despite the super overalls I have, courtesy of CTC, I still needed a shower and a full change of clothes.

After just finishing the 'final' clear-up yesterday, I am not saying, "That's the end of the big mess!" again, just yet! :wall:

ferretkeeper

Alfie sorry I'm a bit lost, my brain is frazzled lately ....what I do is classed as agricultural, not commercial, in pretty much everyone's definitions, but under what circumstances are you thinking I would I need to show an income from it?

As it happens the planners want to see income, as I made my planning app on the agricultural part of the property and I have to show viability as a business. But other than this, no one seems interested :undecided

Who do you have to register the holiday let with? It's not something I've come across as I said before, who should I be declaring it to?

And as I also said, if you meet the valuation office criteria on things like occupancy over a given period, and other stuff, I forget now, you qualify for business rates BUT based on their valuation of my property/business the rates were zero, possibly due to some local small business relief type of thing, Really can't remember the detail, and clearly it differs from place to place.

I'm not sure what difference having a mortgage makes to business rates, it was explained to me as above. but we do indeed have a mortgage, on both our properties, I wouldn't be on a money saving website if I didn't need a mortgage to buy a house.

In any case, whatever the costs involved That house is not about making a profit for us, at least not yet, I'm just happy for it to pay for itself. I think I've said before that it's my pension pot - whether thats rental income, or we sell it, or we move into it and sell our own home.

It comes back to self sufficiency - I'm sure as $h!t not relying on the state to sort me out with a pension, which probably wouldn't kick in til my eighties, with retirement ages creeping up like they are.

You can tell I've Been listening to way too many politicians lately, I almost went off on one there :rotfl:

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

I've been looking at eucalyptus again. I'm really drawn to some of them. Where the ivy failed I'm wondering if some coppiced gums might be a lovely idea.....great smell, structure, bark interest.....year round interest.

Some grow really quickly. I have a tree I grew from seed a few years ago and its trunk is already about 15cm in diameter. They will coppice though, even at that size; I've seen them cut hard back at the Eden Project.

I have two of my quick growers down by Mr Dog. Say no more! Not sure if he can smell them, as my comfrey water is rather 'ripe' just now....:rotfl: