Englishmans home = Castle, not any more....

[Loosehead]

Do you think the public will tolerate loacl authority snooping powers? What are they thinking? save us someone save us from this ever more totalitarian tonyism!
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1 3548767,00.html

[admarlow]

well as far as I can see as long as you do nothing wrong (i.e. pay your council tax) ytou have nothing to worry about, and therefore for those of us who always pay up straight away its actually a good thing.

[Loosehead]

They are intending to re evaluate admarlow, taking account of home imporvements etc. It's not to do with whether you are paying up or not.

[admarlow]

oh sorry Loosehead, well I guess this is a bit like when you have a building extension and you have to let the planning people in to check you are following the approved plans?

[jake-the-peg]

It's outrageous next thing you know we'll have to declare our earnings to the government so that they can tax us.

Surely it's an Englishman's right to evade taxes - we should tell them what it's worth and they should damn well take our word for it!

Although seriously I can't see anything more than a 20 second drive-by for the vast majority of homes.

Of course if you've electric gates and are hidden from the road you'll get a visit

[sp1814]

What if you make home improvements which actually devalue your house...like putting in leaded windows, or one of those nasty metal blinds that John Stalker is always flogging on UK Living.

I bet we wouldn't get discounts for that.

[sp1814]

Serious point - these are just proposals and haven't even been discussed yet. The last time a government tried to fiddle with local taxes, there were riots in the streets and it brought down a leader.

However, if it did come in, wouldn't it only affect properties which were close to the banding threshold?

I can't imagine there would be the manpower or resources to fund teams of inspectors to visit every single home in the country???

[vehelpfulguy]

You would all be surprised at how many people are allowed to enter your house without your permission.

Cannot find full list but it includes the police and customs officers.

Also gas, electricity or water board if they feel your house is in ganger (gas leak etc).

There are all sorts of others.

[kempie]

Hmmm... d�j� vu

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question16 6152.html

[sp1814]

...and Salvation Army.

TRUE - bet your didn't know that!

There's a long forgotten bylaw that states that if a member of the Salvation Army approaches your front door and you don't explicitly say that you're not interested - they can enter your house for a period "up to, but not including three hours".

Absolutely true.

Look it up if you don't believe me. It dates back to 1934 and it's a bylaw in London which has never been repealed.

[LazyGun]

The current rates upon which the system is based were done back in 1991. Given the massive house price increases across the country in the subsequent 15 years or so, I would doubt the Govt would want to go ahead with a revaluation that could end up costing millions of homeowners significantly more council tax. In fact they have postponed the revaluation indefinitely, certainly not before the end of this parliament.

[johnizere]

I live in Wales, so the question doesn't really affect me. But what I will say is that a couple of years ago, our local authorities reassessed all properties here. Surprise, surprise, lots of houses were put into a higher band, and mine went up 2 bands...whoopee. I bought this house in 2002, spent �15000 doing it up to a reasonably good standard, worked hard to pay for it, paid tax on my earnings, paid loads of vat on materials, used local builders, therefore contributing to the local economy, and what do I get??...�600 p.a. on my council theft, sorry, tax. So my house is now worth a lot more...will they accept that as cash when I go to Tescos to do my shopping?..."that'll be 30 quid please..it's ok, I have a house worth 200 grand, will that do?" Why do they think that because you have property that has risen in value, that it means your bank balance has grown by a similar ammount?.
I can imagine the clip-board jobsworths looking around houses (there'll be at least 2 ), giving each other a nudge nudge, wink, wink......let's put this one up a band, brownie points all round. I'm fed up with all this desperate cash raising under the weakest pretenses, and another thing...someone said recently that the green issues are the best way of duping the public to raise taxes, all to save the planet you see!
Rant over, I'm going outside, the steam coming from my ears is making it difficult to see my screen. Happy days.

[johnizere]

SP.....I think I'd have the sally army in my house before some spotty creep from the council!

[Lonnie]

Just another nail in tjhe coffin of this country.