Council tax free months query

Lady_K

I couldn't find a forum for council tax unless I have missed it so decided to post in here as it is also a rented property.

Does anyone know if the non paying months are actually free months or just that they are not spreading them over the full 12 months?

Its just my daughter is only going to be staying in this rented house for 7 months but they have condenced a years payment over 7 months

She moved in the property in June but they didnt start charging her council tax until 1st September by dd even though she informed them straight away. The last payment is down as 1st March, 7 payments in all.

She is due to move out in January her total stay will have been exactly 7 months. What I want to know is do they devide the full years cost by 12 then charge her for 7 of them when working out what she should have paid or will it be devided by 10 because of the 2 free so called months?

gkinrade

Hi

Normally they take the year's tax and divide it into 10 payments (not 2 months free). We moved into a rented flat in at the end of August a couple of years ago and they took the 7 months money and divided it by 7 (not 5 - this would have made the payments much higher).

Hope this helps - you never get any council tax-free months! (If only!)

creditboy

If the bill is up until March then payments would have been divided into monthly payments to that date. If your daughter is moving out in January then as soon as she moves out it is likely that she will recieve a refund for some of the money.

Lady_K

Thankyou, so it looks like when she moves out they will work it out by the whole year cost devided into 12 and then charge her 7 of them so she should actually get a refund by then. Its just shes struggling to pay the higher charges now, if they had started taking payments from June when she moved in and informed them instead of September they wouldnt be as high now

Fire_Fox

Didn't your daughter set money aside for council tax over the summer?

CIS

Thankyou, so it looks like when she moves out they will work it out by the whole year cost devided into 12 and then charge her 7 of them so she should actually get a refund by then. Its just shes struggling to pay the higher charges now, if they had started taking payments from June when she moved in and informed them instead of September they wouldnt be as high now

The statutory instalment plan is for 10 payments from April to Jan with the number of instalments decreasing by 1 for each month later in the year that you start paying.

When she leaves the property the charge will be calculated to the exact day and any overpayment can be refunded.

Lady_K

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Didn't your daughter set money aside for council tax over the summer?

She contacted them the day after she moved in and gave them her direct debit details and for whatever reason they did not start deducting until Sept 1st. She did not notice that they hadnt started taking the money out so she thought it was being paid.

housebuyer_abc

CIS wrote: »

The statutory instalment plan is for 10 payments from April to Jan with the number of instalments decreasing by 1 for each month later in the year that you start paying.

When she leaves the property the charge will be calculated to the exact day and any overpayment can be refunded.

But remember that the months she lives elsewhere will still give her a council tax liability