rateable value

mnrjndp

How does a water company determine the rateable value of your property? Is it related to council tax band?

Many thanks,

MNRJNDP (apologies for the rubbish username, there weren't many options left!)

Cardew

Welcome to the forum

No relationship to council tax band.

Rateable Value(RV) was a notional value placed on the property in order to collect 'local taxes' before council tax and before that the Poll Tax. The RV system finished in 1989.

The Water companies had no role in how the RV was determined, but used this RV figure for their assessment of charges for all properties until 1989; after that date meters had to be fitted. Existing houses could(and still can) elect to have a meter fitted.

In theory the RV was based on the notional rent a property could command and discriminated against newer properties with all 'mod cons'. So you could have huge old unmodernised 6 bed detached houses with several acres with a lower RV than a modern 3 bed semi on an estate. This was on the grounds that the bigger house was not an attractive proposition to rent, even though it was worth several times more than the semi.