What are you all up to
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Would be nice Francis if she did allow self contained holidays before the 26th, fingers crossed.
We have Craigie gardens booked for a few days from the 19th April, then down to a lovely CL near Stranraer. Those 2 could now not happen unless she has a change of heart. If she does allow local sites we don't really have any near us we would use, they are all in 'other' areas. We could always go out for the day in the MH
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Why should we be forced to downsize due to a tax?
Time CT was based on ability to pay, as the SNP said they would look at many years back, not on a perceived nice house, nice area they must be loaded approach! They made things worse a few years back by imposing an arbitrary £500 increase on properties in our band, over and above the regular increase, presumably on the "must be loaded" approach. So much for their manifesto proposals.
We have done the arithmetic and decided to stay in a house we designed and had built 33 years back as long as we can afford to do so. To move to a 2/3 bed bungalow in this area would cost us over £30k in costs, fees and stamp duty, so we have decided to stay. We prefer not to have the hassle of moving, plus here we do have somewhere to keep our caravan.
When we had the house built we used a lot of good quality materials, and saved by doing quite a lot of the work ourselves.......it was the only way we could afford what we wanted. As a result we have had minimal outlay on maintenance in the last 33 years, we still have our original kitchens, bathrooms, CH boilers, windows and doors, though we are planning a change of our en suite bathroom soon.
In this house we know every detail of the build, where every structural member, water pipe and cable is, the area is excellent, the neighbours pleasant, why would we want to move to a place we know nothing about, with unknown neighbours?
The housing market here is much more stable than in southern England, so unlike , no doubt, properties in your area JVB, having built a quality property, we reckon that in 33 years our house is now probably worth only about 4 times what we spent on it back then.
As TG said, getting a water meter here is expensive, so there is no encouragement to do so, we have looked into the matter.
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Most people in our area have a water meter. As its just the 2 of us it saves us a lot of money. We pay £39 a month for water at the moment.
I agree about not moving Kj. We live in a 4 bedroom detached house. We moved here in 1988 with 3 teenagers. We looked into moving/downsizing a few years ago and decided that it would just not be cost effective after taking all the costs involved into account. Anyway we like the space and love our garden It was brand new when we moved in. It was a one off built by a local builder and very solidly constructed so maintenance has been minimal so far, although a few niggles are beginning to surface.
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Kj
I can well understand you not wanting to move, we feel very much the same, particularly whilst we have the motorhome which we wouldn't want to put into storage. There aren't many bungalows in MK anyway and those that are would cost more than our house would sell for. Our only real option to downsize is an apartment which we are not that keen on. The difference in price between 3 and 4 bedroom houses, when you take into account moving costs and possible refurbishment costs hardly makes it worth it.
I am not sure how you get over the Council Tax system. You need some sort of tax to sustain local services and even CT does not pay anywhere near enough without further Government support. They tried Poll Tax but that wasn't acceptable to enough people for it to work so I am not sure what alternatives there are? Is it unreasonable to expect those that have more valuable house to pay more than those in more modest properties? I don't think we will get any future favours in terms of subsidies to pensioners as many politicians of all stripes seem to think we have had it good for so long? So I don't see anything changing in our favour.
Owning property does give us options however. It does give us the opportunity to move somewhere smaller and less expensive which could cut down on costs even if we are inclined not to follow that route. Anyone who owns a house outright as a valuable asset and there are many opportunities to take advantage of that asset value if you should want to without moving.
David
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Got a text on my mobile just before evening meal today, quite ruined my sense of taste
. As a result of last Fridays blood test, I now am looking forward, NOT, to a telephonic appointment with Diabetes Specialist nurse. Gulp. Somehow I think that Brian is going to need earmuffs for that one !! Ah well, I will just have to rely on my innate charm, wit and good nature to get me out of this one
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I hope you hear about your 2nd jab soon nellie. When was your OH's 1st jab? Mine was the middle of January so I am hoping to hear about my 2nd one in 3 to 4 weeks.
OH had her first jab on 5th Jan and mine was 5 days after hers, so all things being equal I should get word this week.
The medical centre, and all that are involved in giving the jab, are very well organised now, as OH was in and out in 20 mins including waiting time. They've obviously got it down to a fine art now...lots of practice I guess.
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I can hear what you are saying and can see why you are reticent to move ,but then as we get older ,we have looked at many options to move,to the coast, our house is not big,,but the draw of all the facilities we have ,has kept us here , , and it is a very nice area ,as several of our friends have said ,even a couple who live in a village in Notts , it no wonder you have decided not to move from here,
Besides as these properties were built for the council in the late fifties ,from who we bought it in 1994 (thankyou Maggie),for £27,000 cash sale when i was given the opportunity to retire early,with also a redundancy package ,the best investment ever with the price of these properties now
We do not have room to keep any of our LVs here although we do have a garage for our car ,at the end of our garden ,although it belongs to the council (and will not sell it to me)
The costs are not cheap for either the storage or garage but then we are in a very high cost area, for most things so our costs probalby match yours when our leisure LV and car storage costs are counted
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Ours is the only house on our little street now that doesn’t have details of what we paid for it, some 37 years ago. But even we are astonished at what our neighbours properties are selling for at the moment. Big houses, big gardens, and most folks buying are heading up here from the South. We found out last week who our next door neighbours will be. Thirty something couple from Surrey, no children, he is in Army, she works from home, sound really nice, couldn’t ask for anything better really unless current occupant could stay.
If we move, it will be a downsize, and the area will be the prime driver. Somewhere further North, edge of somewhere like Pickering, or one of small villages around there. Mind, we would consider Scotland, Borders as well. Or Northumberland🤔0 -
We got our council bill too this week, and it's up to £180 p m for 10 months, and we are on band C, so not a high as some are paying. Completed my census on line, easy peasy.
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Is that for a 10 month payment or like Kjell's 12 months?
We are on a water meter, but that was by choice soon after I retired and we knew we would be away from home for up to 2/3rds of the year in our caravan. We weren't for course expecting to have to stay at home so much because of Covid!!😡
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I thought we had to wait until Sunday nellie? We will get ours done tomorrow or Thursday. Nothing complicated for us. It all looks very straightforward.
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Out fairly early tomorrow, Nellie, for some serious food shopping, then a decent lunch to build me up for the afternoon doing Council Tax & Census On-line paperwork, if that makes sense
At the moment I have BBC News @ 10 on with some film / videos of the victims of the war in Syria. It makes our C19 worries very small beer indeed.
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Here in Devon we have the highest water bills in the country. Well someone has to pay to keep the beaches pristine for the holidaymakers! I can be quite mean with the water. Love being at the caravan where our water is not charged for and we are not using it here. I never pay the CT by DD always pay monthly on the credit card, where I get points. Over the years we have enlarged our house several times but we still only pay the original band of CT, but we won't shout about that.
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I feel your pain, Francis... 🙂 I've even thought of paying someone to do it, but, apart from the money it would cost, I'm concerned that someone could use a high pressure jet.... I reckon ours will get done before Easter...
David
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It's the area covered by SW Water and not just Devon, Debs. It's recognised by Govt that we have the highest charges in the country which is why we get a Govt subsidy of £50 p/a but, despite that, we still pay through the nose.☹
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Oh, I wish! £53 p/m for us - metered 😧
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Good grief.... we are paying around £73 a month for water and 'drainage' - but we only pay 9 months - then we get 3 months off! - that still works out at about £55 a month over 12 months. We're not on a meter, but perhaps this is something that we should look at.
David
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10 months, fortunately. We don’t pay anything March or April.😀 Although they fitted a meter a few weeks ago, we don’t get charged on it. It’s purely part of their leak checking programme. They did about 50% of the road, the others were already on meters. The letter they sent did say we could opt to go on it if we want. Our water bill is £52 a month for 8 months, then 4 off.
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Definitely, David. Your payments are about the same as ours if you take into account our Govt subsidy.
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A local income tax would be fairer than a charge based on a calculated house value back in 1993 (was it 1993?)
People choose to spend their income in different ways, some save a lot, others spend it on frequent holidays, the latest phone or a huge TV, and some, like us, chose to build or buy a larger home. When we moved here in 1988 there were 5 of us.....the 2 of us, our son and daughter, and OH's Mum, we had 4 bedrooms and MIL had her "granny flat" with lounge, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, so it is quite a large property, but we seem to manage to use most of it one way or the other.
However, just because the house is large does not mean that we use a lot of council services. With only the 2 of us these days, we generate very little refuse, and our water use is modest, so we get poor value for money in that respect. When the house is sold it will quite likely be to a family, so they will use more water etc, but I would think they would need to have a household income of at least twice or three times ours to buy here, so with a local income tax they would be paying much more than us.
The Community Charge, which replaced rates for a couple of years, was more favourable for us as each adult paid a fixed amount, I paid for the 2 of us and MIL paid her own, so each adult using council services was contributing, but a local tax based on income would be much fairer IMO. In most countries there is a local tax levied to pay for local services.
I do think it is unreasonable to expect a householder to pay a tax based purely on the value of their property without taking their income into account.
We do look now and again at what is on the market locally, but there are very few "all on one level" bungalows, and like you we do not fancy a small flat. Most of the bungalows around here have loft conversions, so are quite large, with a price to match. Anything smaller seems to have very small rooms, and poor storage, so we remain here.
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Ours does appear in the public records, but as it was only the plot that we bought, it is listed as £25,000!
Land around here has increased in value massively since then, you would pay at least £200,000 for the plot these days.
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"Wow, i knew Yorkshire was expensive, my sister lives near Malton, been advised our monthly will be £189 , do you live in a castle "
No Rufs - nothing like
Just a modest 4bed / 4 bathroom detached house on a new(ish) development after we supposedly downsized when we moved here 8 years ago. What galls me is that there are just the two of us, both retired and our demand on local services is limited as compared with many others around here whom we're effectively subsidising - but then many of us are in that position so there's no point getting uptight about it but the way that CT is calculated, based on property prices is totally unjust.0 -
We're in credit at the moment, we're quite heavy users when our big garden needs water in the summer even though we store a lot of rain water. We don't waste water or worry too much about usage but a meter leaves us in control.
If deciding about a meter we could try it for a month and then reject it.
Our council tax is expensive so it's swings and roundabouts.
Up early to get a delivery slot and sort neighbours out with theirs. It will be easier with just us in future! Hopefully trip to NT garden at 10am for first slot there!
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