Thanks for the welcome Shagbite.
Opening the lid of the‘can of worms’ a bit further…
Shagbite said firstly, do you know any listing officers that would put an extension into a council tax band based solely on the installation of a boiler? obviously, if this extension has any of the amenities associated with a dwelling (kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, toilet) then my answer would have been adjusted accordingly. but, based on the information provided by the op, i think his mate'll be ok.
The OP just stated that it was an ‘extension’ on a house and that the boiler is a ‘long run’ from the new ‘extension’. We don’t know what the ‘extension’ is, but the use of the words ‘long run’ suggests (to me anyway)that it is not just a ‘permitted development’, added onto the rear of an existing lounge (for e.g.). If it is, then I cannot see why it would need another boiler. Based on the facts we have at the moment, I wouldn’t like to come down off the fence, one way or the other. Even then, the decision is, ultimately, one for the Listing Officer [LO] but, quite properly, subject to the usual rights of appeal.
Re your question, I will try to answer it as directly as I can, but I am feeling a bit like the person who is asked for directions and whose initial response is ‘Well I would not have started from here’ :smiley2:. The answer to your question is ‘no’. But with the rider that I would have expected the LO to avail him/herself of all the relevant facts, and not just one/some of them, before making a decision.
If an ‘extension’ is a self-contained unit, then the LO is under a statutory duty to amend the Council Tax valuation list, to include an entry in respect of the dwelling, with effect from the date that the dwelling came into existence.
If the LO decides that an ‘extension’ is not a self-contained unit, then he/she places (on my understanding) a ‘marker’ on the Council Tax valuation list, to review the banding of the extended dwelling, upon the next ‘relevant transaction’ (in simple terms, a sale of the freehold, but also some leasehold transactions). The extension is known, in the LO’s terms, as ‘a material increase in value’. (You appear, from later in your post, to have some knowledge of ‘material increases’.)
Shagbite said 'i agree entirely with this. but nowhere in the op's question did i see anything to indicate that the extension is going to be a self contained unit. all he has told us of "what is physically there"is an extension with a boiler. a boiler on its own doesn't constitute a selfcontained unit and any bricks and mortar test would struggle to justifybranding it as one.'
Think that I have largely already covered this above? Happy to stand corrected and provide a comment/answer, if you point out to me what you consider I have missed.
Shagbite said 'i think you might have misread or misunderstood mystatement. i neither said, nor meant "the fact that an interconnectingdoor exists between an 'extension' and the 'original property' means that thetwo could never be classed as separate 'self contained units' and thereforeattract their own separate bandings in the council tax valuation list." -why would i say that? of course they could.'
What is it the ‘young people’ say, these days? Ah yes, ‘Mybad.’ Sorry. :smiley2:
Shagbite said 'i think my post would have been better if i'd written it as:
(1) installing a second boiler in an extension will not have any influence onthe council tax rating of the main building (obviously, the banding may bereclassified upon sale of the property by the present owners), nor will theinstallation of a boiler result in the extension being classified as a separateentity that requires its own rating (providing there is no supplementaryevidence to the contrary - plumbing for bathroom/kitchen etc.).
(2) if there is an adjoining door between thetwo buildings (accessed through a living room and not a shared hallway) it isclassed as an extension and not a self contained unit.
(3) your mate won't get charged two lots of council tax for one property (basedon the information provided). ''''''' '''' ','
Re (1) This is tricky!! One long sentence. First part, up to ‘present owners),’ - is true, provided that the ‘main property’ and ‘extension’ remain as one dwelling, rather than becoming two. If they become two, then (if the ‘main property’ was a detached dwelling) it has now become something different, because it is now ‘attached’ to another dwelling. It could, perhaps, be argued that this is a ‘material reduction’, as defined by section 24(10) Local Government Finance Act 1992. If so, an appeal could be made to the independent Tribunal, for the banding of the ‘main property’ to be reduced. Whether or not it was reduced, would depend upon the value, as at 1 April 1991, and subject to the other statutory assumptions for such valuations.
Second part – I would not stray from the ‘self-contained unit’ and ‘bricks and mortar test’ wording. The first phrase is in a Statutory Instrument [SI 1992 No.549] and the second is in decisions of the High Court [Jorgenson LO v Gomperts 2006] to give one example.
Re (2) On The Valuation Office Agency’s [VOA’s] website, their ‘Council Tax Manual, PracticeNote 5: Appendix 1: Case summaries relating to Disaggregation’ states, at 3.2 [Batty (LO) v Merriman) ‘NB: It is as a result of the judge’s comments in this case, that where access to the annexe is solely via a main room of the adjoining unit, it will not be considered separate living accommodation.’ So, true if this is solely the case, but not (on my understanding of the case law) if there is also (or is) a separate external access, or access via hall/stairs/landing of the ‘main property’.
Re (3) As stated earlier, the information provided is incomplete. I’m ‘fence sitting’ and saying contact the Listing Officer. Whence a decision to treat the ‘main property’ and the ‘extension’ as two dwellings/separate Council Tax valuation list entries could be the subject of one (or more) appeals to an independent Tribunal.
Shagbite said 'p.s. are you saying that there are situations in the high court involving the voa, regarding extensions with nothing more than a boiler? or do the court cases involve properties that are more akin to hmo's? '
I don’t know of any Council Tax ‘self-contained unit’ cases, appealed to the High Court by the LO and involving nothing more than a boiler. (My case law knowledge is current as of four years ago, so unsure if there is anything since then.) My understanding is that, the LO, in the early days of Council Tax, ‘picked and chose’ the ‘self-contained unit’ cases that it appealed to the High Court, to give a ‘spread’ of the sort of issues/problems that it was coming across, so that it could get some guidance as to how it should treat these in the future. As such, there could be several issues contained within each appeal and multiple appeals heard together [e.g. Batty (LO) v Burfoot and Others].
Second part of your ps - I will assume that you mean ‘Houses in Multiple Occupation’, as defined for Council Tax purposes, rather than ‘Houses in Multiple Occupation’ for planning. The two are not the same and I must confess as to knowing little/nothing about the latter. For Council Tax, another ‘can of worms’,unfortunately. If you still have the will to live after reading my reply, have a look at the VOA’s ‘Council Tax Manual, PracticeNote 6: Premises in Multiple Occupation (Aggregation of Dwellings)’. There are High Court decisions for this aspect of Council Tax and the Manual refers to these. My previous ‘rider’ about the (perhaps) differing interpretations of the VOA/LO and Chartered Surveyors in private practice still applies.
Cheers,
Jez Wilkins.
