6 days ago
‘My house, farm and barn are all being double taxed – this is a wealth tax'
A 77-year-old pensioner has been left with an £11,000 council tax bill after his house, farm and barn annexe were all deemed to be his second homes.
George Easton, a retired chartered surveyor, has been left in a bizarre battle between two councils with neither authority acknowledging which of his homes is his main residence.
Mr Easton, who owns a terraced house in Norwich and a farm cottage complete with a barn annexe 20 miles away in Eccles-on-Sea, has been charged double council tax bills on all three properties.
Both Norwich City Council and North Norfolk District Council have assumed the property in its authority is a second home and applied a 100pc premium from April 1.
It meant Mr Easton, who lives alone, is paying the equivalent of six council tax bills amounting to £11,314 a year.
He told The Telegraph: 'Somewhere, there is a house with six people in it, and I am paying 36 times as much as one of them. They are sharing one council tax between the six, and I am a single person paying six council taxes.
'All it is is a wealth tax. Why they don't call it that, I don't know.'
Norfolk has one of the highest proportions of second home owners in the country with one in 10 properties in North Norfolk being a second home.
