Rateable value & Council Tax bands

cyrixmg

About 8 years ago we had our Victorian house in North London converted into 2 separate flats.
Originally the whole house was in Council Tax band G but upon re-evaluation our flat dropped 2 bands down to E. Should our water rates now be lower as well?
When I enquired at Thames Water, I was told that the rates are the Council's department and nothing to do with them - end of conversation!

lincroft1710

Rateable Values on domestic property ended in 1990, they cannot be changed. You can opt for a water meter which may not be feasible in some flat. If you cannot have a meter you can ask for an assessed charge

Cardew

cyrixmg wrote: »

About 8 years ago we had our Victorian house in North London converted into 2 separate flats.
Originally the whole house was in Council Tax band G but upon re-evaluation our flat dropped 2 bands down to E. Should our water rates now be lower as well?
When I enquired at Thames Water, I was told that the rates are the Council's department and nothing to do with them - end of conversation!

Welcome to the forum.

Council Tax banding has nothing to do with water charges.

Your house would have had a Rateable Value(RV). That was the basis of 'local taxation'. It changed to the Poll Tax and in April 1990 to Council Tax. From that date meters were compulsory in new properties, but as a concession existing properties could retain their RV based charges if they didn't want a meter.

When you had the house converted to flats you should have had both flats fitted with a meter. The regulations very clearly stated that 'any substantial alterations' to a property should be declared to the Water company and a meter fitted. - of course most people never bothered.

So there is no mechanism to lower your RV.

We have had many cases of house conversion on MSE where all flats had the same RV based charges as the original house, and some where only one paid water charges and the other flats paid nothing!

lincroft1710

Cardew wrote: »

Your house would have had a Rateable Value(RV). That was the basis of 'local taxation'. It changed to the Poll Tax and in April 1990 to Council Tax.

Community Charge (Poll Tax) came into force on 1 April 1990, Council Tax on 1 April 1993.

Cardew

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Community Charge (Poll Tax) came into force on 1 April 1990, Council Tax on 1 April 1993.

Correct my bad!

From water charges perspective, 01 April 1990 is the date when Rateable Value(RV) ceased to be the method of collecting 'local taxes' from domestic properties. However the RV could continue to be used as the basis of water charges for those with pre-April 1990 properties who chose not to be metered.

lincroft1710

And do you remember it was said that the water authorities would only be charging on RVs for 10 yrs, i.e. the year 2000? At least that's what we were told in the VOA.

Cardew

lincroft1710 wrote: »

And do you remember it was said that the water authorities would only be charging on RVs for 10 yrs, i.e. the year 2000? At least that's what we were told in the VOA.

Also the same 10 year deadline was given to sort out the stupid situation with Surface Water Drainage(SWD); then they amended The Water Act to allow the same conditions to continue.

Stupidities like every flat in a, say, 30 storey block of flats pay the same SWD charge as those in a 2 storey block.

As I have said several times before, I know of old derelict mansions that had a 'peppercorn' RV prior to 1990. These have been modernised and are now Band H council tax, but still pay 'peppercorn' water charges. There is no requirement under planning control or building regulations to inform the water company.