One in four southerners denied rebate

One in four households in the south of England will be excluded from the council tax rebate, hitting pensioners in larger homes in particular.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak cut council tax temporarily for properties in bands A to D, with households receiving rebates worth £150 to alleviate the strain of rising energy bills.

Nearly 3.5 million households in London and the south of England will not receive the Government funding as they are deemed to live in homes that are too valuable. Nine in 10 people in the North will be entitled to the rebate.

Pensioners living in large homes with little retirement income will fall through the cracks of the Government’s aid. Millions have already been forced to take on debt or cut back on spending, as the cost of living crisis bites and the state pension loses value.

However, pensioners will be among the hardest hit by rising energy costs. They already face the highest energy bills in the country, as they spend a greater proportion of their incomes on heating their homes. Nearly half of over-65s said they would have to heat their homes less, according to Age UK, the charity. One in four said they would have to choose between heating their home and the food they buy if energy bills increased substantially. Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, said: “The Chancellor’s support will still leave many of these pensioners facing energy costs surging by an extra several hundred pounds that they cannot afford to pay. There’s no doubt it will lead to many more turning their heating down or off altogether.”

Council tax bands are based on property valuations made in 1991, which means they are outdated in many cases. Those living in areas where values were high in the early 1990s, but where house price growth has since been relatively lacklustre, may find themselves in a higher tax band than others with much larger properties.

A resident in a band D property in Notting Hill, London, worth £755,000 must pay £ 827 a year in council tax while a band D home worth £255,000 in Sefton Park, Liverpool would be charged £2,027 – 145pc more.