Property journalism ~ What's in a name? About £125, that's what
The Sunday Telegraph, February 2006
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Mike and Brenda Williams fell in love with their Grade II Jacobean cottage in Wiltshire the moment they saw it. The only thing they desperately wanted to change was its name. "Rookery Cottage" just didn't suit their new home, with its thatched roof and carved beams. "The birds flew the nest years ago and it's become a rook-free zone," says Mike.
The couple knew that their building had been badly damaged by a fire several years before. "The builders did such an excellent job of restoring its period features, re-thatching with Turkish reed, that we decided to call it 'Phoenix Cottage' as it literally rose from the ashes."
Mike and Brenda wrote to the Royal Mail, their bank and the utility companies to let them know. But when they finally came to registering the change with their local authority, North Wiltshire District Council, they encountered a nasty bureaucratic surprise; the council said that rechristening the cottage would cost £125.
When Mike queried this charge, a spokesman stated that, "although name-changing administration costs have always come out of the council tax, we now charge for it due to the extra work of putting newly-named houses on the council register, contacting the fire and ambulance services and advising the Land Registry".
Nine councils in Wiltshire and neighbouring Somerset have followed suit, demanding between £80 and £160 for each re-registration. After news that John Prescott's council tax revaluation will levy charges for everything from sea views to convenience for public transport, it is hard to not to see this as yet another stealth tax. So stealthy, in fact, that few homeowners know anything about it.
Kennet District Council in Wiltshire, which charges £100, only made 12 official name changes last year and hasn't yet worked out what to do if someone refuses to pay. "We don't have fines or enforcement procedures; so far it hasn't happened," says a spokesman, who claims the rebels soon come to heel when warned that the council can't be held responsible if their post goes astray.
Across the country about 95 per cent of people who change the name of their house don't bother to tell the local authority. But this is no way to escape the charge, which Kennet promises to levy as soon as it tracks them down, stating that it "involves more administration and expense when we find out".
"Homeowners already face rising council tax bills and expensive property taxes like stamp duty and inheritance tax," says a spokesman for the Council of Mortgage Lenders. "If the new 'names tax' spreads to other counties, there will be a lot of disenchanted people around."
The desire to rechristen a house is hardly unusual; it is the one way for those of us not famous enough to have streets named after us to make a mark: "Dunroamin" may indeed mean that the owners have finally put down roots, it could be a post-modern joke and it is also probably the first thing a new owner will want to change.
People who prefer traditional properties and aspire to a certain lifestyle might express that in their house name. Hence the cosy-sounding "Home Barn", "The Old Post Office" (at the heart of village life) and "The Vicarage", which tells everyone that "we've arrived".
Then there are descriptive names - "Rill House" or "Foxgloves" - that distill the very qualities that attracted the owner in the first place. "House names are often based on geography or local history and we may have aspirational reasons for our choice - to give a house a name instead of a number or to improve on an existing title," agrees Paul Fincham of Halifax Estate Agents.
"But perhaps the strongest motivation when it comes to naming names is nostalgia." He points to such favourites as long-standing family names or calling a house after a prominent uncle or a great-great-grandmother. Other people choose a link to a much-loved holiday haunt, a town with romantic memories or a shared private joke - remember that next time you visit Silvia and Kenneth at their lovely home, "Silken Cottage".
The link could even be to a warmly remembered image of home - the whole family gathered around a roaring log-fire at "Christmas Cottage". Whatever it is, choosing the name adds the finishing touch to a new home. But how long will it be before homeowners across Britain are expected to pay for the privilege?
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