Some property is exempt from council tax altogether. Will council tax be payable on all houses? becoming a new council tax payer on a property. substantial changes have occurred in the locality that have affected the value of your home as at 1 April 1991. your property has been adapted for someone with a disability. (). endobj %PDF-1.4 Hi Trudi. data collected is anonymised. Your feedback helps us make our digital services better. How can I find out the valuation band of my house? You may be able to get help with paying for public water and sewerage charges. If you cannot reach an agreement with the authority to pay off the arrears, or you can't keep to the payments under a time to pay order, the authority can enforce the summary warrant by making deductions from your income support, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, universal credit or wages, or having sheriff officers seize your goods to the value of the amount owed. The council will pass your appeal to the secretary of the relevant local valuation appeal committee. aged 17 or under (you have to be at least 18 before you have to pay the council tax), living in the property temporarily and it is not your normal home, prisoners or someone in detention awaiting deportation, being detained in a hospital or hostel under mental health legislation, full-time student on a qualifying course of education (including correspondence or on-line courses); student nurses; Foreign Language Assistants on the official British Council programme, a full-time student who has completed a Higher National Certificate (HNC) or a Higher National Diploma (HND) and who has an offer of a place on the second or third year respectively of a full-time first degree course that will start within six months of the completed course, a spouse, civil partner or a dependant of a student who is a non British Citizen and who is not allowed under immigration rules, either to work in the UK or claim benefit, a young person on a government training scheme or an apprentice (not all apprentices are disregarded), long-term hospital patient and care home resident, living in a hostel which provides care or treatment because of your old age, physical or mental disability, past or present alcohol or drug dependence or past or present mental illness, a live-in carer of someone entitled to certain benefits. Please tell us more about why our advice didn't help. It is a tax on domestic property but the rules about who has to pay it are quite complicated. Job-related dwellings or purpose-built holiday homes must have a 50% discount applied. By the end of financial year 2018 to 2019, we will have invested more than £1.4 billion in CTR. Couples living together will both be liable, even if there is only one name on the bill. We also use non-essential cookies to help us improve our websites. Two people at the same point of the hierarchy will both be liable. The surcharge will not be applied if the property is being actively marketed for sale or rent and has been empty for less than two years. /Width 435 /Type/ExtGState /Type/XObject More information on local authorities' discretionary powers to vary the Council Tax on these properties can be found in the Council Tax on second and long-term unoccupied homes: guidance. 4 0 obj Introduced in 1993, council tax is used as a means to fund local public services - from police forces to bin collections. >> Some property is exempt from council tax. enough indoor space for a disabled person to use their wheelchair. Find out if this is the case by checking the value of your property in 1991. /ca 0.82 If you have arrears of public water and sewerage charges, the local authority may use council tax enforcement measures (see previous paragraph), or if you are on certain benefits it can ask the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to make deductions from your benefits for water and sewerage charges. Council Tax is a local tax, set by local authority districts to help pay for local services. Usually, the person living in a property will be the liable person, but sometimes it will be the owner of the property who will be liable to pay. All residential properties are given a council tax valuation band by the local assessor. /ca 0 Initially a discount of between 10% and 50% is required, but after a property is unoccupied for 12 months (or 24 months if being actively marketed for sale or let), an increase of up to 100% may be imposed to encourage owners to bring empty homes back into use. This is called making a proposal. The local authority should send you a reply within two months. Key Points. Mygov.scot uses cookies which are essential for the A property is exempted from council tax where all adult residents of the household are care leavers, students, school leavers or those affected by a severe mental impairment. This is called the valuation list. What is Council Tax. /BM/Normal By the end of financial year 2018 to 2019, we will have invested more than £1.4 billion in CTR. You will need specialist legal advice before taking one of these cases. The committees can also hear appeals regarding the determination and calculation of Council Tax liability. Our means-tested Council Tax Reduction (CTR) scheme reduces or eliminates the council tax liability of around 500,000 lower income households in Scotland, depending on household circumstances and ability to pay. The exemption applies for a maximum of six months. This can be achieved by entering a previous valuation of your house into Nationwide's House Price Index Calculator. If they are in a lower tax band, then it may be possible that your property has been assigned the wrong band. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Termed as "second-gear valuations", it was revealed that valuations were often carried out by driving past homes and doing a perfunctory valuation. Your cookie settings have been saved. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. a non-resident owner of any part of the property unless there is a non-resident tenant or sub-tenant who has a lease (or sub-lease) of six months or more. From 1 April 2017 a local authority can choose not to grant any discount on the council tax charge for a second home or holiday home. Each year, every local authority will set a rate of council tax for each valuation band. The CTR reduces the amount of council tax they are liable to pay. You have the right to pay by 10 instalments. Welcome to the Scottish Assessors Association Portal . Some people do not have to pay council tax and some people get a discount. /CA 1 If you think that your property should be exempt, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau - where to get advice. Your council tax bill may have only water and sewerage charges to pay, for example, if you get maximum Council Tax Reduction (see previous paragraph). /AIS false For example, if you are a student owner-occupier and have a tenant who is employed you will be responsible for the bill after it is reduced by 25% for the single person's discount. The valuation appeal committee cannot hear appeals about why you have not paid your council tax. /Type/ExtGState The band is based on the value of your home on 1 April 1991. /SMask/None /ColorSpace/DeviceCMYK /Type/ExtGState There is a fact sheet about what to do if you think your council tax band is wrong on the Scottish Public Ombudsman website . If you are in arrears of council tax, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau - where to get advice. Nobody under the age of 18 can be a liable person. /SMask/None 9 0 obj Some property is exempt from council tax either because no-one lives in it or because of the condition it is in or because the people who live in it are exempt from paying council tax.