Trying to relocate, two houses, and council tax

Rob81

Hi guys, this my first post, I hope you knowledgeable people can give me some advice

here is my situation:
I own a house in the midlands. Two months ago I started a job in Leeds and my wife and I intend to fully relocate to Leeds as soon as we can.

My wife has a job in the midlands, but is looking for jobs in Leeds. We have a bit of work to do on the house there, then it will be going on the market.

So she's living in the midlands, meanwhile I'm renting a house in Leeds where I live during the week at the very least, in fact I have only been back 2 times in 2 months.

The council up here has said that we cannot claim the single persons discount at either address, and have only granted me a 10% discount for my 'second home' in Leeds.

I feel that this doesn't fairly reflect our situation and motives (though I have outlined it to them just as I have here); we're trying to relocate and paying our two full sets of council tax isn't particularly helping.

What do you guys think?

00ec25

sadly for you the way you have been treated is consistent with how a number of my friends have experienced it also in the same circumstances re living away whilst working.
In the council's eyes you have one main residence where your wife lives and that remains your family home, irrespective of how frequently you have actually visited it, so your Leeds place is getting the second home discount until such time as you sell up and only actually own one house.

Waldir

Hi,

We are almost in the same situation with my wife (but she's a student, and had to move for the second part of her diploma to a company 300 miles away), and they only gave us the student discount on the 2nd house's council tax after we pestered them for a few months.

We also wrote to a city council advice team, and they confirmed that the councils can do whatever they want. They can see us as living separately, and therefore have the discounts, or they can decide that we live together and have a second residence, hence paying expensive in each place (and that's usually how they see it).

Basically we tried to prove that we were not living together at all (and it was the truth, but still hard to prove - and it's still dependent on their goodwill) => sending proofs that each of us works in a different city, that if we had a choice we'd rather live together... bank accounts in our respective places (not sure this helps though)

Good luck... you'll need it.

Rob81

Thanks guys; so much for labour mobility, hey

00ec25

true, but also so much for the perilous state of local government finances now having to fund the increased benefits bill and other increased costs, can't have it both ways, a lesson we will all shortly find out after the next election !