Council tax set for battle of the bands

Council tax set for battle of the bands

Wales is two years ahead of England - and 'Council Tax Revalue Wales' starts on Friday. Of the 1.3 million domestic properties in Wales, 33.4 per cent have gone up one band or more, 58.4 per cent are staying the same and 8.2 per cent have gone down.

But the variations between different areas are huge. In affluent Cardiff, 64 per cent of homes - 87,000 out of 136,000 in the Welsh capital - have gone up one band or more. In Wrexham, 53 per cent of homes have moved up. At the other end of the spectrum, only 7 per cent of homes have shifted up in Blaenau Gwent.

'There have been wider property price divergences in England,' says David Melhuish, spokesman for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

An analysis of house price rises by the Halifax between 1991 and now - the period between the existing council tax valuation date and the start of the new one in England - bears this out. In a ranking of house price growth in more than 400 towns in England and Wales, the top Welsh town - Barry - only comes in at number 75 (with a growth rate of 214 per cent in that time).

The table shows the towns where house prices have increased most and least in this period. So it seems that if you live in Weybridge, Hove or Stanmore your chances of being put into a higher.....continued below

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Whether your council tax band goes up, stays the same or goes down is a complicated question. Since just about all homes have gone up significantly in value in this time, the issue is really about whether yours has gone up more than the average.

The Halifax listing shows that average house price growth has been about 175 per cent in this time. So if your home has gone up significantly more than that, be warned. You can find your current valuation by getting your band from your council tax bills and checking the value of that band on the Valuation Office Agency's website or on your council's website.

Homes in England are being valued from next Friday - giving enough time for the Valuation Office to get the 22 million homes across England done in time for the start of the new regime on 1 April 2007. So if you know your home's current value, you have some pieces in the jigsaw (although the official valuation could, quite correctly, be somewhat different to what estate agents say it is now worth).

No one yet knows what the new bands will be, or if there will be additional ones. The government will receive a report on this by the end of this year from Sir Michael Lyons and is expected to consult on the issue 'probably in early 2006'.

When the first valuation was done in England in 1991 for the then new council tax, estate agents on the ground were the key players.

Now computers will do most of the work. Using Land Registry data for the 1.5 million housing transactions completed each year, the Valuation Office Agency will be able to extrapolate backwards and forwards in time and across localities to get its estimate of the value of your house.