The government has been accused of using “big brother” tactics by paying for data to increase council tax bills.
Rightmoves.co.uk has sold information to the government about the 800,000 properties on its online database, including floor plans and sales prices. This info is being used by the Valuation Office Agency to revalue properties for council tax banding.
Conservative local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: “This is a sinister development. It is several steps beyond big brother.�
Estate agents fear it will deter customers from dealing with them if they are signed up to the online site, used by about 8,000 independent estate agents to advertise their clients’ properties.
One agent asks whether it was morally right of rightmoves to sell this info, and wants to know what level of detail has been passed on, and if it is in breach of any data protection issues.
Huge council tax bill rises are expected to be announced for middle-income home owners next year following the revaluation.
Rightmoves denies passing on any property data or personal client info and says all the information the Valuation Office has access to has been freely available in the public domain. If that is the case, why did the VOA spend taxpayers’ money on paying for information which was freely available? I smell a rat.
It does not surprise me that the government uses Big Brother tactics. I think it is a wrong move for rightmoves to sell confidential information to the government. Perhaps, a boycott would make them see commonsense? And, those who have bought properties from the firm and then had their council tax increased should sue the firm to recompense them for the loss. I suspect that this is not a moral issue but comes under a breach of contract in English law. Either the government is spending public money obtaining confidential information, or it is wasting public money buying what it can obtain for free and this is gross incompetence. Which is it?
You smell a rat and quite rightly. This is not just incompetence – it’s skulduggery. Why indeed did they pay? Who stood to make the cash?
Ellee, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you support council tax then you support a tax that’s based on the value of your property. The valuations in England haven’t been recalibrated since 1991. Therefore no-one who supports council tax can oppose revaluation using the best available data. As for the payment, I can only speculate that RightMoves added value by packaging the data in a convenient form.