Stealth council tax rise hits 100,000 families by making them pay extra for improving homes

Published 05th Jun 2009

Families are paying hundreds of pounds more council tax after their homes were revalued by stealth, it was claimed last night.

Government valuers have shifted 102,407 properties into a higher band since Labour came to power in 1997.

Porches, extra bedrooms, conservatories, parking spaces and even treehouses have cost their owners an average of £200 extra a year.

In the past two years alone, 27,804 properties have been bumped up – many of them in the South East.

Ministers insist that council tax revaluation will not happen until after the next election.

But Julia Goldsworthy, Lib Dem local government spokesman, said the figures made a mockery of these claims.

‘It’s clear that we are seeing council tax revaluation by stealth,’ she added.

‘More than 100,000 families are paying more since improvements were made to their property and there is worse to come.

‘Ministers have made no promises to avoid mass national revaluation following the general election, leaving families all over the country with even higher council tax bills.

‘Revaluation is an inseparable part of the council tax system. Both the Government and the Tories have been dishonest to pretend otherwise.

‘The only way to avoid revaluation is to scrap the unfair tax and replace it with a system based on ability to pay, not the price of your home.’

Official figures show that nearly 452,000 properties have been revalued in the past 12 years. The owners of one in five of these have been forced to pay more.

If a home changes hands, the Valuation Office Agency is notified, allowing it to carry out an inspection to determine whether the property should go up a tax band.

According to the Lib Dems, a move up would see a typical bill rise £200 from £1,175 to about £1,375.

Current council tax bills are based on a 1991 assessment of properties. But ministers are building a database of all 23million homes in England to help calculate future charges.

Earlier this year, it emerged that the Government had secretly renewed a multi-million pound deal with a leading property website to access sale prices and floorplans for tens of thousands of homes.

Valuation inspectors have already stored digital images of more than 1.6million properties and are collecting details on millions more.

They record the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and conservatories as well as noting down details of attics, porches and outbuildings.

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: ‘Over the past three years the numbers of homes whose council tax banding has changed is less than 1 per cent of all properties.

‘A change that increases a property’s value does not automatically lead to a council tax increase as it may stay within the existing band range.

‘The Valuation Office Agency is required to maintain accurate records but the rule has always been that improved properties only face possible re-banding when sold.

‘As we have said on many occasions, there is no national revaluation of council tax taking place.

‘Any claims to the contrary are absolute nonsense, nothing more than scaremongering, and only serve to make people, particularly the elderly and vulnerable, needlessly frightened.’

Last week, ministers were revealed to have covered up a scandal in which as many as 700,000 households were overcharged council tax.

Source: ' This is Money '

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