How to avoid £175 new address registration fee.

[epsilonGreedy]

My local council charge £175 to register a new address but the department that does this admits this is not a mandatory process, they do however claim to have a monopoly tie-up with the Post Office PAF national database and said I cannot deal with the PAF people to side-step their fees.

 

Council tax payment can happen without registering my newbuild address and right now my priority is getting a domestic refuse collection service at the new build site.

 

Have others successfully avoided local council new build address registration?

[ProDave]

I am in the same boat.

 

Council tax and all utility bills addressed correctly to the new house. Post is delivered correctly.

 

The Council tell me it is on THEIR address database, but it is still not on the postcode database.  That will cost me £150 should I wish to fill in the form and pay the fee.  At the moment I refuse.

 

The only issue it causes is some suppliers have a hissy fit because they can't find it on the postcode database and some don't like entering it manually.

 

There is something about a council's fee should reflect the work involved.  If I knew how I might take that one up and ask them to actually justify the amount of man hours of work they need to spend to notify Royal Mail of one new address they already have on their database and use.

 

I had no trouble paying my £35 to get a pair of wheelie bins delivered and the bin men empty them weekly.

 

 

[newhome]

I didn’t pay it. Never had any issues apart from the fact that some companies will only accept an address with a road name and none have a road name on the aporoach to the village. It’s on all but a handful of databases but I suspect that is more down to those companies not updating their system. 

 

I agree @ProDave the cost is excessive. It also doesn’t sound like the LA has a monopoly from this: 

 

https://www.poweredbypaf.com/my-address-is-wrong-missing-does-not-exist-or-is-not-recognised-what-should-i-do-report-it-to-royal-mail/

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

We had no choice but to pay the fee here, as the local authority demanded it be paid as a part of the process of getting the house on the council tax register.  They made it clear that not paying wasn't an option, and that they would contest any house name we chose to use if we dared to try and register the address on the PAF database without going through their street naming team, who will only authorise certain house names (no house numbers in our village).  Our main problem was that the listed address of the plot on the planning application was the wrong lane, wrong post code and named the house that used to own the land, so we couldn't carry on using that.

 

I found that even paying the £120 fee didn't resolve the Royal Mail database problem permanently, and that not being on that data base is a PITA.  I fixed our house dropping off the PAF database (for reasons I still don't understand) by using the link that @newhome has given, which worked a treat.

 

The PITA aspect of not being on the Royal Mail database is that I found that insurance companies, the DVLA and banks all refused to process our address change when we sold our old house unless the address was listed on the PAF and could be found with an online check.  Luckily, the database change using that link above was very quick, within 24 hours our address was coming up on insurance company and the DVLA sites.  Quite important, especially the DVLA, as we were warned that failing to change address details on a driving licence attracts a hefty penalty.  DVLA knew of the sale of our old house very quickly, and wrote to both of us warning that we must tell them our new address immediately and get our licences and vehicle registration details changed.

[Hecateh]

I didn't contest it but Barnsley Council charge £50 and I thought that was hefty.

I had to pay for bin delivery too but that was £20 for 4 bins so not excessive (would have been £20 even if there had only been one bin - glat rate delivery charge)

[ProDave]

I have tried submitting that form again.  Only this time I did not tick the "new house in the last 12 months" box.  I expect it will result in the same you have to pay the fee" response.

[newhome]

I bet all they do is fill out the same damn form! Still someone has to pay the gold plated pensions. 

[lizzie]

We wrote in after buying the plot asking them to agree our proposed name.  They replied and agreed and said they would advise the postcode people.  We had our address registered before we put a spade in the ground.  We were not charged ......lucky I guess!

[newhome]

18 minutes ago, lizzie said:

We wrote in after buying the plot asking them to agree our proposed name.  They replied and agreed and said they would advise the postcode people.  We had our address registered before we put a spade in the ground.  We were not charged ......lucky I guess!

 

I think that's pretty much all we did. The council agreed to the name and then everything else sort of happened. We did ours early like you in order to get deliveries to the proper address name rather than 'plot 2'. We even got bins delivered way before we were ever paying council tax here. They just asked that we didn't fill them up with building rubbish. 

 

 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Wyre Borough - £22.  

 

24 minutes ago, newhome said:

[...]

They just asked that we didn't fill them up with building rubbish. 

 

We do, and they don't mind...... Very nice lads, very very nice lads

[newhome]

4 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

Wyre Borough - £22.  

 

We do, and they don't mind...... Very nice lads, very very nice lads

 

I don't think you could argue at £22, sounds great! £175 OTOH is off the scale! 

 

The bin men here never look at what's in the bin TBH. I do get away with chucking garden stuff in there sometimes. There is no garden collection here so I would have to drive to the tip plus the car gets (even more) filthy ...

 

[Hecateh]

I have 4 oversized bins.  (All for a one off delivery charge of £20)

1 grey - general rubbish

2 brown - bottles, tins and plastic

3 blue -  cardboard and paper

4 green - garden waste - only collected between spring and autumn equinox.

 

Despite the fact there is only me all the bins are the largest domestic size.

 

My old house and my neighbours have only the garden bin at that size, the generall rubbish a size small and bottle etc and card etc smaller still.

 

If my neighbours hadn't been so arsey I would have offered them a swap as they regularly overfill both the bottle bin (lots of beer cans, wine bottles and pop bottles) and the paper and cardboard bin (takeaways many nights a week) and they are a family with 2 kids and a baby.  

Since they don't even have the decency to be polite they can get stuffed.

 

[newhome]

My bins were free, but I would gladly have paid £20 to get 4 bins! They don't collect glass here and nor do they collect garden waste. It's either recycling or non recycling. I just have the standard sized bins but next door got larger ones because they had 6 adults (and a baby) living there when they first moved in. The council did go in their garden one day when they were at work and snoop in their bins though (my hubby saw them and wondered what someone was doing in their garden so he went and challenged them). My neighbours were less than impressed about someone going through 2 gates to enter their back garden and snoop in the bins. Surely they're not allowed to do that? 

 

Up the road, in the neighbouring LA they collect food waste using silly little boxes that are not practical at all in a windy location right by the sea. They regularly blow all over the road. Really impractical for the climate here. 

[Temp]

My understanding is that the council has the power to decide your address. They can accept, reject or change your address under legislation summarised here.

https://www.geoplace.co.uk/addresses/street-naming-and-numbering/existing-legislation

 

They can charge for this service under section 93 of the Local Government Act 2003.

 

The above is different from getting the details onto the PAF file. 

 

 

 

[Redoctober]

Here in the Scottish Borders, I contacted the local council and they steered me to the Royal Mail. I completed a form and they registered the address free of charge. Also received two bins this week also free of charge.

[Hecateh]

Another thought on addresses

 

Where I live now was built for my grandparents in 1951 (early self builders LOL)

It was always called 'The Bungalow'  Xxx Croft, etc etc.  When it was built it was at the end of a cul de sac which had terraced houses on each side, down to 'The Bungalow' at the end.

 

Over time the terraces were demolished and  further 3 houses were built at the end, these were given numbers 42, 46 and 48 (opposite side to the 'The Bungalow').  My new house has been given the number 45.

 

BUT, since I have been here The Bungalow is on all postal databases as 'Xxx Croft Bungalow' .  Post addressed to 'The Bungalow' (mostly from family, generally still gets here.  It is still on the council's database and electoral register as 'The Bungalow' and my credit rating is affected by this.  It hasn't caused me any issues, I can't get credit in general because I don't have an income and other than the address my rating is high but 'Clearscore' tells me every month that 'registering for the electoral roll at my current address' will benefit my credit score. As I said it isn't really affecting me but for anyone borderline for a loan or credit card it could make a difference I guess.

 

I have asked them to change it and they said they would but it hasn't happened - surprise surprise

[ProDave]

37 minutes ago, Redoctober said:

Here in the Scottish Borders, I contacted the local council and they steered me to the Royal Mail. I completed a form and they registered the address free of charge. Also received two bins this week also free of charge.

Was that an on line form? if so do you have a link?

[Redoctober]

It was online and via the Royal Mail website - no link at hand but I think I found it under " new addresses or something similar.

[newhome]

41 minutes ago, Redoctober said:

Here in the Scottish Borders, I contacted the local council and they steered me to the Royal Mail. I completed a form and they registered the address free of charge. Also received two bins this week also free of charge.

 

Sounds the same as our experience then. I knew we didn't pay but seems Scottish Borders don't charge anyway . 

 

[Triple07]

We weren’t charged in Aberdeenshire, just filled up a form for the “street naming” department and sent in a map of where house was.... Desperate for wheelie bins but as our temporary inhabitation thing isn’t completed don’t want to “poke the bear” ?

[Jeremy Harris]

19 hours ago, newhome said:

My bins were free, but I would gladly have paid £20 to get 4 bins! They don't collect glass here and nor do they collect garden waste. It's either recycling or non recycling. I just have the standard sized bins but next door got larger ones because they had 6 adults (and a baby) living there when they first moved in. The council did go in their garden one day when they were at work and snoop in their bins though (my hubby saw them and wondered what someone was doing in their garden so he went and challenged them). My neighbours were less than impressed about someone going through 2 gates to enter their back garden and snoop in the bins. Surely they're not allowed to do that? 

 

Up the road, in the neighbouring LA they collect food waste using silly little boxes that are not practical at all in a windy location right by the sea. They regularly blow all over the road. Really impractical for the climate here. 

 

The council have an implied right of access under common law, the same right of access that allows the postman, delivery people etc to walk on to your property.

 

Back when I caught a council snooper on CCTV climbing over our security fencing, walking around the site with no PPE on etc, I looked into this in detail.  What I found is that you can remove the implied right of access for everyone except the utility companies and emergency services if you wish, just by giving notice.  In my case I wrote to the council, recorded delivery, withdrawing the implied right of access for all council staff, contractors etc, until further notice.  I backed this up with signs on the fencing: Notice removal of implied rights - blanked.pdf

 

I removed my prohibition on access when we'd finished the build, so that bin men etc could do their job.  I also specifically granted a right of access to LABC, for building inspections.

 

 

[ProDave]

I had the same predictable answer from the Royal Mail

Thank you for your email.

 

It appears we may not yet have received notification from your Local Authority regarding the address below. The local authorities are the statutory body responsible for officially naming and numbering properties and thoroughfares. Please contact their street naming and numbering department and request that they notify Royal Mail of the address.

 

Once we have received this information we can add the address to the Postcode Address File.

 

You can contact your local authority by calling ..... 

 

Looks like there is no way around the councils extortion . monopoly

[newhome]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I had the same predictable answer from the Royal Mail

 

 

 

Ask the council to justify the cost given that Borders Council does it free of charge. Robbing bar stewards! They only need to complete a form! 

 

 

 

[dpmiller]

On a whim I filled in the online form on Monday and have just received an email confirming our address would be live on the database within two days. Nice!

[ProDave]

30 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

On a whim I filled in the online form on Monday and have just received an email confirming our address would be live on the database within two days. Nice!

What was the exact wording that you used to explain why it was not already on the PAF?