Budget next week

Spare BEDrooms I meant of course

It's hard to judge it yet isn't it - there's always so much detail in the Red Book that changes the initial impression. I'm not sure about how wide the net should be cast for help with house buying- £ 600,000 does sound a lot - people could afford houses with spare rooms at that price!

well he's delivered his speech. Must admit that I am mystified why last week there was a move to introduce a minimum price on alcohol and now wee Georgie had reduced the price of beer.
Some welcome concessions on tax I guess.
Don't understand why the infrastructure investment is not on housing - except that the other kinds (road, rail etc) are so slow to get going maybe they wont actually have to spend anything in this parliament?
Wish, wish, wish they would stop battering the word 'reform' into the ground. You have already clubbed it to death boys, really, just let it decompose in peace.

Flick just one update on your post, if you extend your house you do not pay extra council tax but as soon as it is sold the council revalue it and the new owner will have to pay more if the band is changed.

He's back to normal!

Now you're just being silly, Frank.

Demolish jails.
Dump prisoners in the middle of the Atlantic on boats without engines.

At last!! Something we have in common,*Frank*!

Abolish the Royal Family.

Hi Cagsy

I thought people blamed the pensioners for all the wrongs in the world.

I'm with you j08, my DD decided there was no job in the world more important than looking after her lovely boys, now as they approach 6 and 4 she is home educating. She therefore is saving the state the cost of 2 school places and all the help that's offered is for Mum's who also go out to work - even though many of them don't really want to. It seems as though parenting isn't valued, yet when they get it wrong everyone is quick to 'blame the parents'.
Cagsy

Charge prisoners rent.
If they can not pay sell any assets they may have.

How will they enforce a tax for second homes?.
A wife could legally own 1 house and the husband the other.
And yet another for the son / daughter.

Frank

£10 tax on women's only fitness classes.
Subsidy for mixed classes.

£100 on a packet of cigarettes.

Qoadruple Galen's and Orca's tax.

I would give more help to young families to encourage mothers to stay at home and care for their own children.

Not a lot of point starting on the potholes before the freeze thaw of winter has done its worst. And it appears, it hasn't finished yet.

Thanks Flickety.

I do remember now that a neigbour did appeal when he found out he was paying more than some others.
The council must know about all the extensions etc because they deal with all the planning applications.
Wonder when they will do a revaluation. Can't imagine that would be a vote winner! Maybe we will have downsized by then.

Marmardoit, Council Tax was introduced in 1993 so the revaluation was done in 1991/1992. Assessors who knew the area just walked along a road assessing the value of houses and the tax you pay is based on the band the valuation of your house falls in. Anyone who felt their house was over valued could appeal.

Band A covered houses valued up to £27k (in 1991/2) and Band G, the second highest band covered houses valued between 160k - 212k, again in 1991/2. Anything above that is Band H.

All houses will have been assessed and allocated a band when the new system came in. All houses to this day, new or old, whether they have changed hands or not are still valued on what their notional price would have been in 1991/2. A revaluation was planned for 2005 but this was postponed indefinitely.

It is quite possible that if the value of a house with three bedrooms put it at the bottom of a Band in 1991/2 that extensions done since may have moved up its value within the Band but not yet into the next band. It is very confusing because all valuations are based on values in 1991/2

In this area the council tax on second homes will now be 150% the normal rate. This is not an area with many second homes but I think it is a step in the right direction, even though I will be direct affected (for reasons too complex to go into). I wonder what would happen if they introduced this in tourist areas full of second homes.

When was the revaluation done?

I'm sure council tax in our area is still based on the old rateable value. Most of the homes in our street still pay council tax on the 3 beds they were built as (late 70s). Many have been extended to 4 or 5 beds with an extra bathroom so should go up at least one band, but because the houses have never been sold the council tax band remains the same.

A special band for London Pensions?

Movedalot I think we should introduce bands above the existing bands, currently the start of the top band in £320k. I know these were set some years ago but I do not see why they shouldn't have tax bands I, J & K set at the price levels then prevailing, of £500K, £750k and £1,000k. The Councils should have a record of the value set for every house when the revaluation was done.

Aspen In France, where we have a second home, we have always paid full council tax for our house, even though we spend more time in England than France. When we started local taxes in France were considerable lower than in the UK, but the French are rapidly catching up.