Estate agents secretly selling home details to tax inspectors

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Snooping: tax officers can now find out exactly what your home is worth.

Government officials have been given access to a vast database of properties, revealing their sale prices and detailed floorplans, under a deal with the website Rightmove.co.uk.

The site, run by four of Britain's biggest estate agents, contains information on 800,000 properties - and the contract, which runs until 2008, also gives inspectors access to old records.

The Valuation Office Agency - the department of HM Revenue & Customs that allocates a council tax band to every home in England and Wales - will be able to use the data to find out about improvements such as double-glazing and conservatories that may increase tax bills.

Conservative local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: "This is a sinister development. It is several steps beyond Big Brother.

"We should do our best to limit the amount of personal information the Government holds. That's because they are never able to resist the temptation to use it - and in this case they will use it to raise taxes."

The information from the website, used by about 8,000 independent estate agents to advertise their clients' properties, will be integrated into the £40million database the VOA has purchased from US firm Cole Layer Trumble to help it revalue homes nationwide. It is feared this will lead to tax bills rising by up to 400 per cent.

Concerns have already been raised about plans to use satellite and aerial photography as part of the revaluations.

Local Government Minister Phil Woolas confirmed: "The contract gives the VOA the right to use property records within Rightmove's current and historic database."

But homeowners who have used the website were shocked that their details had been sent to the Government without their knowledge.

Theresa Pratt, who sold her three-bedroom house in Ealing, West London, through Foxtons, said: "I had no idea that the details would end up with the Government."

A spokesman for Britain's Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, said: "If personal information is involved and the consent of householders has not been expressly given, this could be a data protection issue."

Britain's largest estate agency chain Countrywide launched Rightmove in February 2000. Five months later, Connells, Halifax Estate Agencies and Royal and Sun Alliance also invested in it.

Rightmove commercial director Miles Shipside refused to discuss the value of the contract. He said: "Rightmove publishes details of all property listed by its members on its public website, where the photographs, floorplans and property descriptions can be viewed and saved. The agreement simply allows the VOA access to already published data from the website."

A spokesman for the VOA said: "The contract is subject to commercial confidentiality. This is just routine updating, using publicly available material."

 

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