England Still Taxes Homes at Their 1991 Prices — Epoche B1
In England, the council tax on your home is decided by which of eight bands the property sits in — and those bands still rest on what the house was worth on 1 April 1991. The Local Government Finance Act 1992 fixed that valuation date, and no general revaluation has happened since. Band A covers homes valued at up to £40,000 in 1991; band H covers anything above £320,000. Even a house built last year is not priced at today's market value: the assessor decides what it would have been worth in 1991. The whole system therefore runs on a date that most taxpayers cannot remember. The consequence is easy to describe and hard to defend. House prices have not risen evenly. Some towns have grown far more expensive than others, and their residents still pay a share of local spending that was worked out when their streets were cheap. Two neighbours in identical houses pay the same amount, which looks fair — until you notice that a small flat in one city may sit in the same band as a large house elsewhere. A household that opens a surprising bill usually suspects a mistake in the paperwork. Normally there is none. The bill is correct; the valuation behind it is simply old. So why has no government corrected it? Because a revaluation does not raise more money overall; it moves the burden. Roughly as many households would pay less as would pay more, but the losers receive a letter with a bigger number on it, and the losers vote. Wales revalued in 2005 and the political cost was noted in Westminster. Fairness here has a price no party has been willing to pay, and every year of delay makes the eventual correction larger. References Parliament of the United Kingdom (1992). Local Government Finance Act 1992. HMSO. Valuation Office Agency (2023). How domestic properties are assessed for Council Tax bands. GOV.UK.