Check your TRP bills, urges homeowner
The owner of a St Sampson’s farmhouse is urging people with ‘complex’ properties to check their TRP bills after a review of his saw it cut by about £600.
Horace Camp was set to appeal against the Cadastre after he was billed more than £2,000 for his property, a 40% rise in a year.
But before the appeal the Cadastre looked again at his bill and found that it was incorrect.
‘The Cadastre has been very helpful in this process,’ he said.
He added that he could have challenged the decision when TRP first came in and may well have had the same result.
‘In effect I have overpaid TRP since it was first introduced.
'But given the relatively small TRP bill in those days I never felt inclined to bother about it.’
However, he was spurred on to appeal after the States approved changes to the way TRP was calculated, what Mr Camp referred to as ‘a quasi Wealth Tax approach to TRP whereby the larger your property area is, the greater the TRP rate charged per square metre.’
The review found that one of his extensions had been wrongly assessed as having a first floor, which led to him being charged for 39sq. m rather than 26, saving more than £55.
On top of that, there was a significant TRP reduction for a packing shed which Mr Camp said was assumed to be ‘a lovely Guernsey granite barn’ but which was an single block building with a corrugate asbestos roof and not part of the property. This bill was cut by more than £250.
His domestic rate overall was reduced, too, which will also lead to a reduction.
‘I don’t have the new bill yet but I estimate total reduction to be at least £600,’ said Mr Camp. ‘It’s still exorbitant, but that’s another battle. I’m encouraging everyone with complex properties to check their assessment very carefully.’
Information on TRP billing is available at gov.gg/cadastre.
