Advantages of Caravan With Own Address on Our Property If you want to know how your DIY projects could be affected by building and planning regulations, click here to post questions and view answers

[henrysears]

Me and my partner have just bought a run-down C.19th house for renovation. It hasn't been lived in for about 12 years. In the garden there is an old (now beyond repair) caravan; not a static, but a large caravan of the sort used by fairground people and travellers. When I phoned the council about council tax, I was told that the caravan had it's own separate address and council tax account!

The question is, what advantage, if any does this give us - is it worth our while keeping the council tax paid for it (we might perhaps be able to rent it out as a separate domestic unit?).

At the moment we want to replace it with a converted horse lorry that I already own, to live in whilst we renovate the house - is this acceptable from a planning point of view?

[diydoctor6]

As you describe it, your caravan does not sound that appealing so renting it out might be a challenge! If there is no benefit to it (ie, you're not even prepared to use it and it is going to be difficult to rent), why pay council tax to keep it.

If this is the case, I'd remove it and inform that council so you stop paying tax which should give you an immediate saving to reinvest in your build.

The other part of the question is whether you have to pay council tax on your horse box [i]and [/i]your home while you are renovating the house and living in the horse box. Essential you should only have to pay council tax on habitable dwellings so in this circumstance you should only be paying for one, but you will need to demonstrate that the house is not habitable.

Find out more here:
http://manuals.voa.gov.uk/corporate/pub ... n-pn1.html

As you can image the practicalities of enforcing these rules make for some grey areas, but you can sort this out with a quick call to the council who will advise you exactly what you need to do.