Stamp Duty and Council Tax To Be REMOVED For House Value Tax

The biggest threat would seem to be to landlords with tenants who are currently exempt from council tax. This new tax is proposed to be payed by the owner – it seems unlikely that they would be exempt.

This student landlords and those housing the disabled and benefit claiments may be the worst hit – ironically the people that the politicians claim to support.

An annual property tax is not the way to go to resolve any financial black hole instead of Council Tax on those that live in the properties. To be honest a Poll Tac would be fairer.

Adapting to this proposed property tax will mean higher rents for every new tenancy.
Existing tenancies may not be able to be increased initially enough to cover the annual property tax liability.

It also depends on whether this ridiculously thought out proposal gets Royal Assent before or after the Renters Rights Bill.

if Tenants are currently exempt from Council Tax eg on benefits, in prison, students etc if this proposal is in force first will = s21 notices given to many many more and landlords sell up.

If after then likely s8 Ground 1 used as the landlord need never have resided in the property and sell or wait the minimum time before renting out at a rent that includes this additional tax.

This government is walking a misguided and possibly dangerous path for our Country’s Constitution, well being and existence, not just for landlords. Their policies and proposed legislation are increasingly desperate and honestly very scary.

We could see this country turned into a 4th world country with many UK nationals living in tent cities and others being housed in the bricks and mortar homes owned and once lived in by those nationals or their tenants.

Tent city dwellers too will no longer have the right to vote to remove or vote in new governments.

Should call it what it is – rent. If the government collect rent from you on your property, it’s not your property anymore.

Like all other taxes, once the wedge gets in it’s go up either directly or with fiscal drag.

I don’t have the figures, but I can’t see how a relatively small annual percentage tax limited to properties over £500,000 is going to add up to the total take of council tax across all properties in an area. I’d expect it the threshold to get dropped to £250,000 very quickly.
Plus, it’s assuming that the income in the house is still at the level or higher that is was when it was purchased. That’s not going to be the case with retired folks which will be a fairly significant percentage of the owners.
But then the whole concept of taxing property, “because it can’t move and hide”, is flawed as it has can have little relationship to the household income. As Judith said a poll tax would be much fairer and a lot simpler to collect if applied as taxed at source by HMRC. Maggie got that part wrong, if the poll tax had been collected direct at source by HMRC and distributed based on registered address or if unknown the company registered address, then the whole inefficient and vastly expensive council tax collection system could have been scrapped nation wide.

I think they are trying to crash the property market because they have finally realised they can’t get the social housing built that they promised. New 3 bed houses in our area are over 500K. If the replacement council tax is still based on house values it will still be wrong. It does not make sense for some one living in a higher value house to pay more tax. I remember when I rented (private rent) a studio flat and I worked with a lady who had 3 adult workers in her household and she rented a council house. Her council tax was the same as mine and her rent was not much more than mine. This was because I lived in the town centre and she lived in the sticks so property values were lower where she lived. This is a system based on property values and it is not fair. There should be a lower property band because at the moment my tenants pay council tax A on a small studio but a flat, 3 times the size, 3 doors down worth 400K is also band A. Why should people in households (up north) pay a lot less just because their house is worth less. It doesn’t mean they earn less money than us. I am fed up with articles written by young people who mock people down south because young people in the south can’t afford to buy property but up north they say “what’s the problem? I bought my first house when I was 22!”. But that’s because they only paid 80-90K etc etc. If they rebrand council tax based on valuations it will still have the same unfairness. I believe there should be a cap on what anyone should pay but it should involve a means test & be based on how many adults are in the property. However this will never happen because it would be too expensive to run a means test system.

Reply to the comment left by Tim Rogers at 02/09/2025 – 15:19
You say you cannot say what the problem will be, well let me give an example we have an HMO property with 13 units a 220 pounds a month council tax bill if these new rules come in and they charge us on the value of the property which is about 1.3 million pounds we will be paying a substantial increase compared to what we’re paying now, currently HMO properties with flats in the Bournemouth area have now had their council tax liabilities deleted so for example in one house we used to have six flats that paid council tax they were deleted so those flats no longer pay any council tax we now pay one fee of 220 pounds a month for the whole house, if you multiply that across thousands of HMO properties the government is losing millions of pounds it is also unfair on other landlords who have flats where council tax is charged but it’s not an HMO why should an HMO with flats be excluded from paying council tax by the tenants?
So we currently have a system at the moment where there are people living in flats and rooms who contribute nothing towards public services that is wrong, why should I pay for public services that neighbours who rent flats or rooms are not paying a penny-pence piece?

Reply to the comment left by Michael Mousing at 03/09/2025 – 13:44
I understood CT was deleted on HMO’s where people were renting a room, this made sense given it was just a room although self contained. But I was not aware that people living in flats had their CT deleted? I have 2 studio flats 30M square and the council tax is Band A but the bill is £150 a month. Again this shows how unfair the CT banding is. Perhaps they should just have more bands

As a tenant who has never missed a payment in 19 years, plus paid the council tax through thick and thin I always look on here to see how things are going for Landlords, which includes mine.
All I can see is a relentless squeeze on the people that put their own wealth on the line to help others because the government have failed for decades on housing.
What this will inevitably do is two things, increase rents even more, bearing in mind many tenants use over half of their salaries to pay rent now if they are on 24kpa, to the point they may be driven over the edge.
Landlords are slammed and part of it, my gut feeling is that saying.
“You’ll own nothing and be happy”
Elites favourite.
I’ve noticed the likes of SERCO and Black Rock hovering up anything they can get their fingers on.
This is going to be so unfair on both Landlord and tenant all because of continued government incompetence and overspending on things like £20b on carbon capture amongst one of many.

Birmingham council has a lowest council tax collection rate in UK. I do not know for sure what is the reason but If government now shift the burden onto landlords and owners, their collection rate will certainly improve because if you don’t pay, they can always have bailiffs seize your property and collect the debt when it’s sold. With renters they can’t do it this way. A lots of renter’s do not pay council tax as same as rents to landlords.

Reply to the comment left by Ewelina Bak at 06/09/2025 – 08:43
So landlords become unpaid tax collectors!!!