Granny flats: are you entitled to a Council Tax discount?
Council Tax bills have been slashed for households with a family annex.
Over 2,400 homes have benefited from Council Tax discounts on family annexes or ‘granny flats’.
More than £1.3 million has been knocked off bills nationwide since the charge was reduced last year. Before the change two Council Tax bills were being levied on the same home if it had a ‘granny flat’ or similar extension.
Discounts of 50% were granted for properties where families were housing non-dependent relatives, in addition to existing exemptions given to families who were housing a dependent relative.
Nearly 17,000 households are now getting a discount or exemption.
According to Government figures, Cornwall is the granny flat capital of England with 595 households receiving support.
The top 10 looks like this:
|
Area |
Number of exempt annexes: Class T |
Number of exempt annexes: Class W |
Estimated number of dwellings that received a family annex discount |
Total annexes getting support |
|
Cornwall |
109 |
375 |
111 |
595 |
|
Wiltshire |
185 |
156 |
11 |
352 |
|
Herefordshire |
155 |
137 |
19 |
311 |
|
South Norfolk |
140 |
103 |
58 |
301 |
|
North Norfolk |
127 |
79 |
23 |
229 |
|
Shropshire |
72 |
116 |
33 |
221 |
|
Wealden |
128 |
82 |
1 |
211 |
|
Cherwell |
18 |
59 |
98 |
175 |
|
King’s Lynn and West Norfolk |
70 |
77 |
27 |
174 |
|
Uttlesford |
77 |
55 |
34 |
166 |
- Number of exempt annexes is the number of dwellings in Class T and W exemptions on the October 2014 Council Tax Base form
- Class T applies to annexes which may not be let separately from the main property because of a planning restriction
- Class W is the dependent relative exemption
Ministers believe that many more people are entitled to the reductions and they’re urging town halls to be more forthcoming with residents who are likely to benefit from the scheme.
If you think you might be entitled to this Council Tax cut, make sure you contact your local council. You should get back any Council Tax you have overpaid dating back to last year.
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Lets start at the top, how many granny flats has Buck. palace got? Do those who live there even know what council tax is? let alone declare how many occupy the place. To sort all this out properly, and "get us all in it together" Council tax before it gets any further out of hand, should be abolished. 90% of the money collected in is wasted on constant refurbishments of the ivory towers these self serving over bloated councils occupy,with their over paid CEO's directors and their army of senior managers. All they do is make one mistake after another then expect the public to pick up the bill for their cock ups. Get rid of the lot, give them all a week notice, and end all the over staffing. Then offer the best of the worst based on actual requirment to do the job's in hand a new employment contract based on no more than the national average wage. The local council racket is now way out of hand, they all compete with each other and duplicate. They waste our money on endless costly logo updates, endless refurbishments. They all have an overpaid CEO's with his fleet of directors all pretending they know what they are doing, when most of time they don't have a clue. In wales it is even worse, councils are run like Gaddafi style dictatorships, 22 CEO's on hundreds of thousands a year each, running round in Porsches leased at the CT payer. Another CEO is waiting trail for fiddling his own pay rise. The whole thing is a joke. So lets get shut of these hypocrites, and abolish council tax once and for all. After all is as Cameron once claimed, " we are all in it together" then how much CT is he paying on number 10. Or for that matter all his other ministers with their grace and favour pad's all funded by the tax payer? Vote UKIP they are the only party committed to at least reducing the council tax rip off. The money is supposed to be public money, yet after the chesterfield couches, electric doors, and heating on full blast together with all the other fiddles, the public is probably lucky if it gets 10% of what is collected spent on it. So abolish CT and let central government, get some proper control with strict limits on pay.
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A piece of housing legislation which actually makes good social sense! Amazing!
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30 March 2015