CouncilTaxWoes...
As quite a large proportion of my entries over the following weeks are likely to be, this is an update about the situation re: the new flat.
The happy happy bouncy bouncy feeling about having the lovely new place is being a bit subdued at the moment by the fact we can’t work out how much the council tax is going to be. There is an outside chance it might be more than we can afford (depending on how they work it out - my reading of the council website has just confused me - I know it’s based on the value of the property in 1991 but I don’t know how they work this backwards for new buildings, and whether the fact it’s a flat rather than a single property has any bearing).
The thing is, I’ve spoken to the Council who were as helpful as they could be, but discovered that the property has not been banded yet and as such we would not know the figure for potentially up to 3 months after moving in. I explained the problem, being that if there is a large risk the bill will be more than we can afford we won’t be moving in, but naturally she did not wish to make any guarantees. She did however, explain the sorts of things that go into the band decision and told me what was likely but with a big disclaimer that she wasn’t really able to say to any degree of certainty.
We’ve also asked the agency for their best guess based on how similar properties in the development have been banded, but they have not got back to us. Our own research has shown that the building next to ours has been banded C and D but we don’t know what size the flats are in there.
Based on the figures I have worked out, we can afford the council tax in Bands A - E but F - H would stretch us too far. I don’t know how we are supposed to make a decision without any indication as to the most likely level of council tax the property will attract. It’s not something we can take a risk over, as at the point where I am saying we can’t afford it, I really mean it - I’m not talking of small monthly payments here, but hundreds of pounds. Even at the cut-off point, the bill will be a bit more than I am really happy to pay.
Argh why is everything so expensive!?
Other than the inconvenience of sorting out bills, I’m still happily smiling away over our first place together. P took some photos of it yesterday and (though they are poor quality, on a funny angle and he didn’t take one of the balcony!) I spent part of last night squee-ing over them with mum. Hopefully, we can get some sort of satisfactory resolution to the uncertainty of the council tax, then I can go back to being 100% focussed on the looking-forward-to-it.