Square footage

kate10_18

Hi everyone,

My parents bought a new property in December of 2007 and when they told me that they were in Council Tax band G I was amazed.

As I am a fan of Martin's site I followed his advice and did a neighbours check and value check, and from my research I thought they should be in Band E.

I therefore challenged the banding and it was reduced to Band F automatically. They were then sent a letter saying that they could accept the re-banding to F or go to tribunal to argue their case.

In their letter the VOA argued that they were in Band F because of the square footage of the property. They also gave examples of similar properties in their area with similar footage (even though they are very different property types). My parents house is a chalet style property with an integrated garage and is partly single storey so the sq footage doesn't actually reflect its true size.

What I'd really like to know is where I can find details of square footage of houses in the area? I'd like to do my own research but can't seem to find the information anywhere in the public domain.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Best Wishes, Kate

MoneyMagician

Kate,

If any of the houses are currently up for sale, the local estate agencies will have plans with indicative square footages.

You could also make a Freedom of Information request to the local council who assess the council tax to see what records they have. This would give you all of the information for say your parents street, not just selective houses.

The FOI gives you the right to ask any public body for all the information they have on any subject you choose. Also, unless there’s a good reason, the organisation must provide the information within a month. You can also ask for all the personal information they hold on you.

I hope that this helps you

MoneyMagician

vivatifosi

Hi Kate,

If you are going to go to Tribunal then the VOA will have to give you this information anyway, you just need to know which houses to ask for the data on. If you are on good terms with the VOA they may help you pull together some of this info.

In terms of finding it out for yourself, the VOA use external measurements, taken from the outside wall. This is basically so they don't have to call on everyone and measure the inside of the house.

Essentially if the measurement of two of your external walls were 10ft by 10ft, then the square footage would be 10ft x 10ft, ie 100 sq ft.

Sometimes the VOA will use square metres. To get to the square metres from square feet, divide by 10.764. To get from square metres to sq ft, multiply by 10.764.

If you are looking for some general info, without going back to the VOA, then try your internal measurements (as per a floorplan from an estate agents) and work them out the same way. Take the widest room (ideally one that goes all the way across the property), and the longest room ,or two added together. Say your lounge is 12ft wide and by 12 ft long, running along the width of the property and you had a kitchen in front that measured 8ft, then that would be 12ft x 20ft, multiplied by 2 stories (generally...). That should give you an approximation of the overall sq ft internally.

Then compare your external figures. The external figure will be a bit bigger, so work out its percentage of the total. So if your external figure is 5% bigger than your internal figure, then you know when working out similar houses from the internals, you should be working out the external figure as 105% of the total. Hopefully that makes sense.

You can then get property particulars from agents and get started. It won't give you the exact answers unless you go round and measure the outside of people's property, but it should get you into the right ballpark.

Hope that makes sense! This is how I would do it as someone who's worked stuff out to go to tribunal. This is where someone from the VOA comes along and says - no this way's much easier, and by the way Vivatifosi, you could have saved 10 hours research if you had known this!

And as MoneyMagician says, the FOI request is great when it comes to the VOA...

vivatifosi

Kate,

Another thing I'd mention, and I go on about this constantly on the main CT board, is that as its a new house you should also be asking them to ensure that they have excluded the value of any incentives that were included in the sale price of the house.

I've successfully had 25 houses rebanded on overvaluation due to incentives inclusion. Its a powerful argument as the VOA doesn't have that information.

So, get your parents to look through the info. Did they get free curtains, carpets, vinyl flooring, non-integrated white goods, furniture? If so, they should all be itemised and stripped out of the price. As should any fees that were included in the package (eg solicitors fees paid, stamp duty paid) as this would not be a normal part of a transaction. Get the paperwork out and send the VOA copies.

Again, good luck!

kate10_18

Thanks MoneyMagician and vivatifosi - much appreciated. Very useful advice - I'll let you know how I get on. Best Wishes, Kate

guppy

kate10_18 wrote: »

They also gave examples of similar properties in their area with similar footage (even though they are very different property types). My parents house is a chalet style property with an integrated garage and is partly single storey so the sq footage doesn't actually reflect its true size.

The measurements for council tax purposes should exclude any areas with under 1.5m headroom, so the first floor of a chalet would add less floorspace than the ground floor

kate10_18 wrote: »

What I'd really like to know is where I can find details of square footage of houses in the area? I'd like to do my own research but can't seem to find the information anywhere in the public domain.

Its normally only the high end estate agents that publish this sort of thing in their sales particulars, but some developers have started showing the square footage too. They normally calculate the internal area though, so you'd have to add on for the walls.

Best bet is probably an FOI request to the VOA requesting any info they hold on neighbouring properties.

Good luck