Why are Welsh council tax bands based on 2003 values while England still uses 1991?

Full answer

Council tax bands in England, Scotland and Wales are all based on a hypothetical valuation of what each property would have sold for on the open market at a fixed historical date, rather than its current market value, but the specific valuation date differs between nations because Wales carried out a full nationwide revaluation that England and Scotland never repeated. Council tax was first introduced across Great Britain in 1993, based on property values as of 1 April 1991, and England and Scotland have both retained this original 1991 valuation basis ever since, meaning a property's council tax band today still reflects an estimate of its value from over three decades ago, even though relative property values across different regions and property types have shifted enormously since then, creating well-documented unfairness where some properties are arguably in the wrong band relative to their current comparative value. Wales took a different path: the Welsh Government carried out a full revaluation of all domestic properties in Wales, which took effect from 1 April 2005, based on property values as of 1 April 2003, giving Welsh council tax bands a considerably more up-to-date (though still not current) valuation basis than England or Scotland. This revaluation also introduced an additional band, Band I, above the previous highest band, to better capture the highest-value Welsh properties. There has been long-standing political debate in England and Scotland about carrying out a similar revaluation, given how outdated the 1991 valuation basis has become, but no full nationwide revaluation has yet been implemented in either nation.

More answers

• Why does Wales have nine council tax bands A–I and how do they differ from England's A–H?