So I’m pretty late to the party on this one, but it came out whilst the news was released whilst we were away and it’s a pretty big one!
The last 4+ years, if you have anything to do with HMOs - this has been a guillotine over landlords heads.
The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) have been randomly single banding HMO rooms ‘classifiying’ them as self contained dwellings and banding each room as Council Tax Band A. What does this mean?
A 6 bed HMO goes from paying £1800pa in council tax to £6500pa in council tax (CT)!! Increases to expenses mean lower profit and those that are banded are deemed uncompetitive against those with whole house banding. The CT is lumped onto the tenant and becomes and administrative nightmare when tenants move out. But the kicker is how it was implemented.
Randomly! It wasn’t a blanket rule that applied to everyone and hence grossly unfair.
After many years of campaigning by fellow HMO big guns Daryn Brewer and Wendy Whittaker-Large, we finally have an answer from the government and that HMOs *will not* be banded individually for council tax purposes.
An absolute win for tenants, landlords and investors alike! If like me you are in the HMO game, you will know how much of a win this is! Woohoo!
Read more about it here:
https://www.nrla.org.uk/news/amendment-seeks-to-change-council-tax-rules #counciltax #singlebanding #HMOs #coliving #VOA #nomore #unfair #CT