Fair offer

Sarahspangles

jo03gra said:

Sarahspangles said:

He’s also presumably now paying 200% Council tax and is determined to recover that as well.  Houses literally fall down when people can’t be reasoned with.

Yes it feels like the house sitting empty is a terrible shame. So how does the council tax work on an empty property?

I assumed this house was at the 2 years vacant point, the Council simply charges a premium for it being empty, it can go up from 100% to 200% and rises again if many years pass.  It was brought in to motivate owners to bring houses into use and it’s in the Council’s interests to charge as one more occupied property is one less homeless family (net).

There used to be some workarounds like claiming one student lived there (students are exempt), or taking out the bathroom and saying it was therefore derelict but I think these have been tightened up now. 

jo03gra

Sarahspangles said:

jo03gra said:

Sarahspangles said:

He’s also presumably now paying 200% Council tax and is determined to recover that as well.  Houses literally fall down when people can’t be reasoned with.

Yes it feels like the house sitting empty is a terrible shame. So how does the council tax work on an empty property?

I assumed this house was at the 2 years vacant point, the Council simply charges a premium for it being empty, it can go up from 100% to 200% and rises again if many years pass.  It was brought in to motivate owners to bring houses into use and it’s in the Council’s interests to charge as one more occupied property is one less homeless family (net).

There used to be some workarounds like claiming one student lived there (students are exempt), or taking out the bathroom and saying it was therefore derelict but I think these have been tightened up now. 

Ah ok. That’s interesting to know. This house will be expensive CT as 4 bed detached on a very good road. 

Another reason why red flags on price and no offers or viewings. 

Thank you, I’ll bear this in mind. 

lincroft1710

Sarahspangles said:

jo03gra said:

Sarahspangles said:

He’s also presumably now paying 200% Council tax and is determined to recover that as well.  Houses literally fall down when people can’t be reasoned with.

Yes it feels like the house sitting empty is a terrible shame. So how does the council tax work on an empty property?

There used to be some workarounds like taking out the bathroom and saying it was therefore derelict but I think these have been tightened up now. 

That one never actually worked!


I'm ex VOA and we would never delete a dwelling from the CT Valuation List just because the owner had removed the bathroom fittings

Sarahspangles

lincroft1710 said:

Sarahspangles said:

jo03gra said:

Sarahspangles said:

He’s also presumably now paying 200% Council tax and is determined to recover that as well.  Houses literally fall down when people can’t be reasoned with.

Yes it feels like the house sitting empty is a terrible shame. So how does the council tax work on an empty property?

There used to be some workarounds like taking out the bathroom and saying it was therefore derelict but I think these have been tightened up now. 

That one never actually worked!


I'm ex VOA and we would never delete a dwelling from the CT Valuation List just because the owner had removed the bathroom fittings

I’m glad to hear that - when I worked in a local authority I was always hearing some bloke down the pub had pulled this off but never entirely believed it!