Total Area of a House for Council Tax Band Appeal

silverchoice

I am struggling to find the total area of houses on my street so I can choose which ones to use in my Council Tax band appeal.

I have managed to use EPC for some houses but not all houses are on there if they haven’t been sold recently. Is there any other way of finding the total area of a property?

theoretica

Footprint from a satellite photo/map and then adjust visually for number of floors.  It won't be easy to get a reliable number that way, but you should be able to demonstrate which are about the same size/significantly larger or smaller. 

lincroft1710

It is an almost thankless task. Only the VOA will have such details. For houses and bungalows they use Gross External Area measurements and I do not know if EPCs are similarly calculated.


Probably more sensible to wait and see what evidence the VOA produce, you can then look for examples to counter their evidence.

powerbarge

I found quite a few of mine on Zoopla.co.uk, put in nearby postcodes under the "house prices" section (although I don't know how accurate they are, but I used them to successfully support my challenge)

You may also be able to find this by looking at historical "for sale" ads on Zoopla if old floorplans are shown

silverchoice

lincroft1710 said:

It is an almost thankless task. Only the VOA will have such details. For houses and bungalows they use Gross External Area measurements and I do not know if EPCs are similarly calculated.


Probably more sensible to wait and see what evidence the VOA produce, you can then look for examples to counter their evidence.

How do I see the evidence the VOA have used?

lincroft1710

silverchoice said:

lincroft1710 said:

It is an almost thankless task. Only the VOA will have such details. For houses and bungalows they use Gross External Area measurements and I do not know if EPCs are similarly calculated.


Probably more sensible to wait and see what evidence the VOA produce, you can then look for examples to counter their evidence.

How do I see the evidence the VOA have used?

If an appeal gets as far as a Valuation Tribunal hearing the VOA are obliged to send all the evidence they intend to present at the hearing to the appellant.


Considering this is a 3 band increase I think you need to start a dialogue with the VOA asap, because if they have got it wrong, even though you will get it back, you don't want to be forking all that extra money on CT

silverchoice

I’ve just received the property information that the VOA holds on my house and they have the area as 198 square metres but the EPC had the area as 140 square meters.

 I know they are probably worked out differently but that seems a big difference.

lincroft1710

silverchoice said:

I’ve just received the property information that the VOA holds on my house and they have the area as 198 square metres but the EPC had the area as 140 square meters.

 I know they are probably worked out differently but that seems a big difference.

If the EPC was done on gross or net internal area there would be a difference as the VOA use gross external area. Best to either check the measurement yourself or get the VOA round to remeasure.

silverchoice

The VOA have the area of my house to be 198 square metres. But when I use the estate agents floor plan from 2021 I calculate the total internal area to be 142 square metres so I have emailed the floor plan with calculations to them.

silverchoice

This is what the VOA emailed
me about how they calculate the area.

”When measuring houses and bungalows we measure all the area covered within the external walls, excluding:

•           Eaves overhang

•           Open balconies

•           Covered ways and external passages

•           Unconverted loft areas

•           Attached and integral garages

•           Washhouses and fuel stores/coal bunkers

•           Conservatories and porches

We exclude internal areas with a head height of below 1.5m, other than areas under stairs.

We add a notional wall thickness to each dimension before calculating the areas. For example, a chalet bungalow or loft conversions with sloping ceilings.”

CSI_Yorkshire

silverchoice said:

The VOA have the area of my house to be 198 square metres. But when I use the estate agents floor plan from 2021 I calculate the total internal area to be 142 square metres so I have emailed the floor plan with calculations to them.

If we assume your house was a perfect square and that the estate agents plans include the thickness of internal walls (which they often don't) - that's about 12m x 12m internally.

Add wall thickness and eaves onto each side roughly makes a 13m x 13m square.  So I'd expect the VOA to be at least 170 square meters.

A full length internal wall (12m x 30cm) is 3.5m2 if they weren't in the estate agent measurements, so 2 or 3 of those and you're up to 180+ square meters.