Paid long-term care for those in need has been drastically cut back in recent years. Instead, the intention is that care should be provided on a voluntary basis by children or friends and family: informal care.
Mantel care home
Ideally, the person receiving care should live close to the person or people providing that care. Increasingly, the person in need of care – often a parent or parents – therefore lives in a care accommodation within or adjacent to the carer’s home.
The construction of a care home is supported by the government encouraged. This means that, subject to certain conditions, you do not need an environmental permit (formerly known as a building permit) for this. An environmental permit is usually required, however, if you live in a listed building or a conservation area. Naturally, you must comply with all the rules of the Building Regulations. Once informal care comes to an end, the informal care home may no longer be used as a residence. If the informal care home is used for more than 15 years, a permit must be applied for.
WOZ value
Every year, the local authority assesses the WOZ value of the property you own. You pay the local property tax (OZB) based on that value. The WOZ value is also used to calculate water board charges, income tax, inheritance tax and gift tax.
The Valuation Chamber has, in the valuation instruction, which is provided to local authorities annually, states that the value of the temporary informal care accommodation should not be added to the property’s WOZ value. The Valuation Chamber is of the opinion that temporary informal care accommodation will not have a significant impact on the value of the property. The local authority must therefore determine the value of the property on the basis of the situation in which the informal care accommodation has been removed.
Compilation
However, this is subject to the condition that the informal care home and the carer’s home are compilation shapes. East Brabant District Court recently ruled that no such arrangement existed.
This case concerns a detached informal care home, situated on the plot of land belonging to the son who provides informal care for his mother. The mother’s home has its own driveway, can be locked separately and has its own cooking facilities, its own bathroom facilities and its own connections to gas, water and electricity.
However, these circumstances are not decisive for the Court. The judge bases the ruling that there was no joint tenancy on the fact that the mother was the beneficial owner of the property. She owned the right of use and occupation of the informal care home. On that basis, the informal care home must be classified as a separate property for the purposes of the WOZ. The local authority was right to assign a WOZ value to this property.
Incidentally, the value of the estates will be relevant not only for council tax but, above all, for inheritance tax. The legal title that the mother held to the property will be subject to inheritance tax. For the purposes of inheritance tax, the WOZ value is the decisive factor in the valuation of properties.
Objection
An objection to the WOZ decision must be lodged within 6 weeks of the date of that decision. The local authority must issue the standard WOZ decision no later than the last day of February in the year to which the decision relates. The WOZ decision for 2017 must be issued by 28 February 2017 at the latest.
However, when you inherit a property, you (the joint heirs) become a new interested party in respect of that property. You can then ask the local authority to issue you with a new WOZ valuation notice. You can then lodge an objection to that notice – within 6 weeks, of course. In this way, you can try to have a lower WOZ value set.