Council tax vs business rates

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Norfolk Canary
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Post by Norfolk Canary »

Our place in Norfolk is on Business Rates and we pay the local Council to collect the refuse. You can buy your own bins or rent from them. We bought our own. They have been great to deal with particularly when we have had to suspend the service during lockdowns.
Being on Business rate has had a big positive effect on Government grants during lockdowns. I don’t suppose those paying Council Tax got any grants did they? Who knows what will happen in the future with pandemics!
Joanna
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Post by Joanna »

Chester council don't do business waste - we use Ash Waste and they seem to be fine. We've been getting fortnightly collections from them.
https://www.ashwasteservices.co.uk/
Jo

Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
LouLou
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Post by LouLou »

Joanna wrote:Chester council don't do business waste - we use Ash Waste and they seem to be fine. We've been getting fortnightly collections from them.
https://www.ashwasteservices.co.uk/

Thank you for your reply, I am sorry I only just saw your answer. Do you know who to speak to at the Council, I can’t find any information about business rates for FHL’s on Cheshire West website. Also would you know how much you pay for the refuse? Many thanks
Joanna
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Post by Joanna »

I think we pay around £75 per month for fortnightly collections - although it's been a while since we had a typical month! It will depend on what size bin you have & how often it's emptied.

If I remember rightly you have to get a business rating value from the Valuations Office and then Chester work out your rates based on that value.

https://www.gov.uk/topic/local-governme ... ness-rates

If you qualify for rate relief I think you'll have to apply for it after you're registered.
Jo

Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
J B
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Post by J B »

Just curious about folks who live in a 'street' - how do you prevent others putting rubbish in your bin?
Joanna
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Post by Joanna »

Our wheelie bin has to go at the front of the house and we leave it at the back of the parking bay as far from the pavement as possible. It helps that the waste company don't have a problem with walking onto our property to fetch the bin. There's nothing to stop passers by putting rubbish in but they would have to go out of their way to do it. Also, some of our neighbours have their bins next to the pavement so I suspect that they would get rubbish from passers by before we did. However, we're off site so the reality is that I have no idea if other people put rubbish in our bin.
Jo

Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
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dwtmill
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Post by dwtmill »

When we applied to change from council tax to business rates we had to send in our trading accounts for past years. We sent in copies of our accounts for the precious three years and the council refunded our council tax payments for each of those years. Our business rates are zero rated. The council have paid all of the Covid-19 lockdown grants, as they became available, without any intervention from us. For us it was a 'win, win' situation. My fear is that this will all change in the near future when the government change the rules to increase revenue to pay for the Covid-19 borrowing.
Don't look back
Jonathan
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Post by Jonathan »

[quote="Joanna"]I think we pay around £75 per month for fortnightly collections - although it's been a while since we had a typical month! It will depend on what size bin you have & how often it's emptied.

We pay our local council £50 a year for each bin to be collected fortnightly. Clearly councils differ.

Jonathan
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