Bills - how much?

Martico

Turns out there are eight bands.
Council Tax is charged according to the house value guessed in 1991. This is Bristol: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/council-tax/charges-and-bands

Miranda25

Martico said:

Turns out there are eight bands.
Council Tax is charged according to the house value guessed in 1991. This is Bristol: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/council-tax/charges-and-bands

thanks. I see now why it is so different. I did not realise that it is connected to value of property. which again strange for me: how collection of rubbish bins is different depends on the value of the property? do they provide gold rubbish bins to properties with higher value? No. then why council tax is different?

user1977

Miranda25 said:

Martico said:

Turns out there are eight bands.
Council Tax is charged according to the house value guessed in 1991. This is Bristol: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/council-tax/charges-and-bands

thanks. I see now why it is so different. I did not realise that it is connected to value of property. which again strange for me: how collection of rubbish bins is different depends on the value of the property? do they provide gold rubbish bins to properties with higher value? No. then why council tax is different?

It's just a tax, in the same way that you don't get a different standard of service from the NHS just because you pay more Income Tax than somebody else.

Martico

Theory is that people with greater wealth have greater capacity to pay, and I'm comfortable with that. But let's not go down that rabbit hole

Martico

Long story short - you can research your potential council tax bill on any property that you're looking at, and can be pretty certain that will not vary by much (increases are capped)

CSI_Yorkshire

Do you know where your electricity and gas meters are now?  If not, find out.

Read them a few times, then work out how much that amount of energy would have cost.  Now you know how much the energy bill would have been for the property you are in now.

Decide if you will use more or less energy in the property that you want to buy.

You say all this is strange in the UK.  How would you find out how expensive bills would be in whichever country is more comfortable for you to understand?  I don't know any country where everyone who lives in the same type of house pays exactly the same amount for bills as each other.

Martico

That's a good strategy - bear in mind (and, sorry - more research) that there are daily fixed standing charges for elec and gas that you'll need to add to the daily usage. Eek!

Miranda25

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/blog/utilities/how-much-is-the-average-water-bill-per-month#:~:text=Water will cost you, according,depending on where you live.

Miranda25

I am trying to find out average ones. I understand that it would vary depends on meters and spending.

Martico

Miranda25 said:

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/blog/utilities/how-much-is-the-average-water-bill-per-month#:~:text=Water will cost you, according,depending on where you live.

Are you trying to tell me that living in the expensive South West, I don't shower enough?😅