At today’s Corporate Committee three papers regarding impacting the Taxation Services Team were presented to Elected Members. The discussion on these reports have resulted in the following outcomes. Please be advised this is not detailed guidance and full information will follow in due course.

Council Tax - Second Homes
A 100% premium will be added to Council Tax bills for Second Homes. This additional charge will not increase water services charges. This change will take effect from 01/04/2024, and will be automatically added to 2024-25 bills.

Council Tax – Levy Relief
Any person becoming liable for the payment of Council Tax on a property which is subject to the levy will be entitled to 10% discount for a 12 month period. This will be available from 1 April 2024 and will be application based.

Any person has become a taxpayer for a property within the last 42 months and who is liable to pay the levy and is awaiting a decision from the local authority’s planning or building control teams will be entitled to a 50% discount while awaiting a response from those teams. This discount will be available for a maximum period of 12 months (with an option to extend for a further twelve months) or until the planning and building control teams provide a decision (whichever occurs first). This will be available from 1 April 2024 and will be application based.

Any person has become a taxpayer for a property within the last 42 months and who is liable to pay the levy and is undertaking reconstruction work will be entitled to a 50% discount while undertaking this work. This discount will be available for a maximum period of 18 months while work is ongoing (with an option to extend for a further twelve months). This will be available from 1 April 2024 and will be application based.

Any person undertaking reconstruction work on a property will not become liable for the payment of the levy until a period of one year has elapsed since their purchase of the property. This will become available from 1 April 2024 and will be application based.

Non-Domestic Rates – 2024 Empty Property Relief.
From 1 April 2024 a revised local policy will become effective for dealing with claims for relief for empty non-domestic properties. The principal changes in this policy are: the amount of relief for empty properties is reduced from 10% to 5%; empty listed properties no longer have any entitlement to relief (these just get 5% relief); empty industrial properties just get 5% relief; and empty properties with a rateable value to up to £2,000 receive exemption.

What has been outlined above is just a summary of the main points of what was agreed.

Additional information, staff guidance, application forms and webpages will be produced in due course. Please do not raise Support forms for enquiries they cannot answer as the service does not have formal guidance available at this time, customers should be advised to keep a check online.

Following the Council Tax Final Notice run on Monday, CFH have confirmed these documents will be posted out today, as they were not completed in time to make the Royal Mail collection yesterday. The finals are dated 11th January 2024. The quantities are as follows.

2023 : 2093

2013-2022 : 43