Stamp duty and Council Tax

[IanB]

I am selling my house and will move into rented accomodation. I want to buy a dilapidated bungalow to get PP for a demolish and rebuild and would probably stay in rental for the whole time. Two questions

 

1.  If living in rented when I purchase another house I'm hoping it will just be standard stamp duty i.e. not hit with second home duty - is that right?

2. Will I get hit for second home council tax if registered at the rental place?.  I fear the answer is yes, but can I register the house as unliveable if there were say no toilet or cooker in the house (if you see what I mean!).  Should I be switching residences for Council tax if that's allowed?

 

Thanks.

Edited June 8 by IanB

[nod]

1 standard CT

2 depends on LA 

Ours allows 3 months to renovate Used to be 6

Get your permissions through and knock it down ASAP

[G and J]

Our experience is that to stop paying council tax it requires the valuation office to accept that the dwelling in question is not suitable to live in.  The examples they gave are more fundamental, things like no ceilings or doors or services.  So as Nod says, get demolishing!

[IanB]

Thank you. Yes process from Planning to demolish take a good while. I assume then you can get the Council to stop tax at that point and re-evaluate the new property upon completion

[Temp]

You might be able to find a rental that includes Council Tax but they are rare. My son is currently in a shared house that includes Council tax in the rent and the landlord is listed as responsible for paying it.

[JohnMo]

On 08/06/2025 at 12:43, IanB said:

I am selling my house and will move into rented accomodation. I want to buy a dilapidated bungalow to get PP for a demolish and rebuild and would probably stay in rental for the whole time. Two questions

 

1.  If living in rented when I purchase another house I'm hoping it will just be standard stamp duty i.e. not hit with second home duty - is that right?

2. Will I get hit for second home council tax if registered at the rental place?.  I fear the answer is yes, but can I register the house as unliveable if there were say no toilet or cooker in the house (if you see what I mean!).  Should I be switching residences for Council tax if that's allowed?

 

Thanks.

We bought a property for rental which was a complete wreck, we were paying double hit council tax until the council inspected and agreed it wasn't habitable (no kitchen, bathroom, toilets, running water etc. But had to also prove we didn't make it that way, by way of sales documents which stated and showed photos of all rooms.

 

Plus you could be a while between purchasing and knocking down 

[LiamJones]

Do we know if the valuation office will revalue the property after a period of being uninhabitable? For renovation purposes, the trade off may be the saving of no council tax during renovation vs a potential re-band after renovation, offsetting any initial short term savings?

 

I’ve currently not attempted to reclaim any council tax during a deep refurb, for fear of a steep increase in council tax once completed?