Council Tax Advice Needed (Review) Urgent please

[davidmadona80]

A little background : I have bought the adjoining terraced house and knocked through 2 doors from existing house, one downstairs and one upstairs, meaning the houses is accessible from my old house.

Currently I am using only one kitchen. However my newly purchased house has kitchen which is not in use, but has cooker, fridge etc.. which was left by seller and to which I didn't object as he promised to collect it some later date. but I am not sure where he is gone now.

Two months ago, I applied for a VOA council tax re-banding to treat this 2 houses to be as 1. therefore me having to pay only one set of CT.

I have a visit from the valuation office tomorrow, the advise i want is would the second kitchen be a problem in anyway ? or would the appliances be any problem ? for them to consider this to be single unit ?
Just to make clear, there is only one intention of using this house and its as one unit.

Can someone please advise me if this would be a problem ? If so i can move the fridge/cooker outside in the garden etc..

Thanks a lot.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Move everything out of the kitchen, then you can't be accused of having 2 houses.

Andy

 

[davidmadona80]

Move everything out of the kitchen, then you can't be accused of having 2 houses.

This is not the answer i was looking for ? or may be with some sort of explanation or reasoning. When you say move everything what do you mean ? appliances? or everything ?

 

[cajar]

Hard to see how the answer could be clearer. If you have two kitchens etc then you just have two houses with doors between. Remove one kitchen and it can no longer be classed as two self contained houses.

 

[davidmadona80]

Hard to see how the answer could be clearer. If you have two kitchens etc then you just have two houses with doors between. Remove one kitchen and it can no longer be classed as two self contained houses.

Since the doors are put in, they are not longer self contained at least that what i thought from what advice i was given from one of the architect.

 

[Astra99]

Have you applied for planning consent to convert the two dwellings into one? Without planning approval, you will find it extremely difficult to get the two properties treated as one.

 

[davidmadona80]

Have you applied for planning consent to convert the two dwellings into one? Without planning approval, you will find it extremely difficult to get the two properties treated as one.

Planning is not required while converting 2 properties into one by changes internally. This is again from the architect who i took advise while installing doors.

 

[skhudy]

Did the architect not advise on how to have the 2 properties treated as one single dwelling?

Ideally you would have checked with the council before they attended what their views were!

From http://www.homebuilding.co.uk/community/qa/convert-two-homes-into-one

One answer says
You would need to consider the issue of Council Tax, which would be greater for the enlarged property, but still less than having two separate Council Tax bills. In order to disaggregate the second property – have it removed from the Council Tax list – you will at the very least have to remove one of the kitchens completely in order for it no longer to be deemed as two separate dwellings.

 

[davidmadona80]

Did the architect not advise on how to have the 2 properties treated as one single dwelling?

Ideally you would have checked with the council before they attended what their views were!

First, Thanks for sharing the link. Its useful. Now I have contacted the valuation agency on 2-3 occasions but they did not elaborate on what things i need to do to make it a single unit. I had conversation with architect, who is doing planning side of the things for my other work yet to be carried out, advised me that its entirely up to you how many kitchens you want and how many baths ). and that is one of the reason i came here for advise as it didn't look very genuine but he certainly have a point so i wanted to double check. One thing he mentioned is if you make the property accessible from up/downstairs, then it will not be considered individually self contained.

 

[mattylad]

As has been said - move the appliances out of the kitchen.

You are storing them - thats all.
Do not do this in the kitchen.

make it look like its being used as a home office.

 

[Micilin]

With more notice , I would have made up a bed in there for a teenager to stay in.

After one day it would not look like a functional room, never mind a kitchen