**** The 2013-14 'Guide to your Council Tax' is available in the download section below ****
If you have received a bill and the amount you have to pay has been been reduced by Council Tax Support, please see "Council Tax Support from April 2013" in related pages or the "Council Tax Support information leaflet" download
The amount of Council Tax you pay depends on:
- the band of your property, and
- the number of residents living in your property.
Each domestic property (such as a house, flat or bungalow) is placed in a Council Tax band by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which is part of HM Revenues and Customs. The bands are based on what the property might have been sold for on 1st April 1991, not on today’s house prices. In certain circumstances you can appeal against your property’s band, but you must still pay your original Council Tax bill while you are waiting to hear the result. Appeals against bands are dealt with by the VOA, not the council.
More details about bands and how to appeal against your band can be found on the downloadable information sheet 'Bands and appeals against bands' below, or on the VOA's website (see external links on the right). You can also find details of Council Tax charges broken down into bands for this financial year and some previous years in Downloads below.
The full Council Tax is payable if there are two or more residents in a property. A 'resident' is someone who has their sole or main residence in the property - see the 'Sole or main residence' page for more information on this. If there is only one resident, a 25% 'single person discount' applies. Some people are not counted when working out the number of residents (for example, full-time students), so a 25% or 50% discount may apply even if there are two or more residents. See the downloadable sheet 'Work out number of residents' below for more information on counting the number of residents.
You can claim a single person discount online if you are the only resident at your address - use the form under Do it online / Apply in the top right hand corner of this page.
Some properties are exempt from the Council Tax so there is nothing to pay at all. See the related pages below on 'Exemptions for unoccupied properties' and 'Exemptions for occupied properties' for more information. Please note, however, that Council Tax law has changed and from 01.04.13, unoccupied and unfurnished properties, and empty properties undergoing repair, are no longer exempt. See the related page 'Empty properties and the Council Tax' for more information.
You can contact us using the form below - please include your account number and/or address. Or, if you wish to report a change of address, please use the form under Do it online / Report it in the top right hand corner of this page as you can then be sure you give us all the information we need to update our records.
