Issue - meetings

[Report of the Interim Director for Finance. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance.]

To agree the approach for revised Unoccupied and Unfurnished Property Discounts.

The Cabinet Member for Finance introduced the report, which summarised the proposed cessation of two of the Council’s discretionary Council Tax discounts related to (i) unoccupied and unfurnished properties, and (ii) vacant properties requiring or undergoing major repair or structural alteration.

The Cabinet Member for Finance continued to outline the manifesto commitment to redistribution of the Council Tax burden. This included exploring discretionary relief and targeting support for residents in particular need. Over the last 4 years the Council had managed to maintain a balanced budget in a difficult financial context and these financial pressures were likely to continue. The cessation of two of the Council’s discretionary Council Tax discounts would also mean that the Council joined the pool of neighbouring boroughs that had already abolished this discount.

In taking forward this decision, Cabinet were aware that Council services need to be run and properties in the borough benefit from these services, including those that were vacant. The cessation of these discounts would enable the Council to raise money to mitigate the cost in supporting families most in need.

The following information was provided to questions from the Leader and Cllr Dennison:

• The cost of not abolishing these discounts sooner was more than £1m to the taxpayer over the last 3 years.

• In relation to homeowners of vacant properties which were undergoing major repair and restructure being deterred from bringing their home back into use, due to additional expense of the Council Tax payment, the Cabinet Member contended that the property would still benefit from Council Services and house price rises and therefore this was a fair charge.

• With regards to a Housing Association being deterred from updating properties or bringing them back into use by these discounts, the Cabinet Member responded and advised that Housing Associations had their own business model and would likely be able to take account of these additional charges.

• With regards to getting more empty properties back into use, and the suggestion to increase the liability of the home owner on a month-by-month basis, this would be considered going forward.

• Noted that there was a high degree of description, contained within government guidance, on what the Council could do with discounts and the report was seeking to operate within these descriptions, whilst seeking to bring properties back into market as soon as they can be included.

RESOLVED

To recommend to Full Council to cease two of the Council’s discretionary Council Tax discounts from 1 April 2019, namely for:

• Unoccupied and substantially unfurnished properties; and
• Vacant properties that either require or are undergoing major repair work to render them habitable; that have undergone such work in the past six months; or that are undergoing structural alteration.

Reasons for decision

The two Council Tax discounts are at the Council’s discretion. The administration has indicated a desire to appraise the existing fleet of discretionary powers given the continuing need to make savings to the wider budget.

Abolishing the two Council Tax discounts would generate an estimated saving of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56