Self build council tax. backdated?

[Water]

Afternoon all,

 

I had my completion notice a few months ago and finally received a letter from the local council asking who lives in the house and when it was occupied. 

 

Well it's a little difficult to say when it was occupied and then it's when did it qualify..

 

After reading some tales on here I'm wondering as it isn't listed on the VOA website it won't be backdated? I don't really need another battle with the council.

 

Any ideas?

[nod]

We had no power water stairs plater and they still backdated us

[Happy Valley]

We recently moved in and notified the council despite no BC sign off yet. We moved from a larger house next door. 

 

They responded that they will now ask the valuation office for a banding but it could take 2-3 months. This is despite them knowing from August that we could be moving in within 8 weeks. From that I would assume that they are able to backdate. They also said that they would charge as soon as the property was habitable.

[Temp]

During construction our council wrote to tell me they expected us to be complete by date. We wrote back to say it wouldn't be complete until new date a few months later and they accepted it. 

 

Bear in mind they sometimes use sat images to look for signs of occupation. One option might be to claim only site workers were living on site from  date but it only became habitable on later date. Let them have a small win and hopefully the won't backdate it further.

 

 

[Water]

Thanks all. I'll put the completion date and see what they say..

[Johnnyt]

We had a motorhome on the site that we lived in for 6 months awaiting completion, ahem.

[ProDave]

We were legally living on site in a static caravan paying band A council tax so they did not seem so bothered about hounding us, but I think Covid helped in that.  I had to notify them on completion to get the house banded for council tax and the static van removed from the valuation list.