Council Tax. Council's powers to obtain information

clutton_2

"" It was used to demonstrate a point, which you've spectacularly missed""

i certianly did GET the point - its a stunningly ridiculous point... a laughable point .... a nit-picky time-wasting point..... a pointless-point...

show the blooming tenancy agreement and be done with it......

if you come on a forum expect folks to respond in whatever way they see fit.... you cannot control others' behaviour in that respect.. you cannot "order" folks to not post

this is a public democratic forum...

you may not like all the answers you get.. simples..

Yorkie1

Barry_D wrote: »

I asked if anyone knew of the relevant piece of legislation. So far the answer is no. If anyone can respond otherwise, I await a suitable post.

You have been provided with a quote from the relevant piece of legislation.

You then tell us that you were already aware of that legislation; makes your initial question completely pointless, then.

Either you understand the legislation, and don't like it, therefore consider it doesn't apply to you. Or you don't understand it and therefore aren't prepared to take the advice of people constantly banging their heads against a brick wall to try to get the message through your thick skull.


The points to note in the legislation are that the authority can specify what information it requires to establish who is liable, and for what period, and in what form it needs that information. The person to whom the request is made must ("shall") supply it in the way required.

It has stipulated that the tenancy agreement is what it requires. The law requires the person to comply.

If you and your tenant want to waste more taxpayers money in trying to argue the toss then I sincerely hope it's not my council you're bothering. They are doing their job, within the law and if you don't like it then tough. Get elected and amend the law rather than wasting more taxpayer's money.

olly300

BarryD are you are aware that in England there is no law that states you need a written tenancy agreement? If every council was this stupid then they wouldn't get council tax paid as some people only have a verbal tenancy agreement which is entirely legal.

All it means is that the landlord and tenant have to resort to using the law to work out how to manage their tenancy agreement, and any time the tenant is asked for the agreement the landlord has to be willing to confirm tenancies etc.

BTW instead of arguing on here just wait to do the next step.

Barry_D

clutton wrote: »

"" It was used to demonstrate a point, which you've spectacularly missed""

i certianly did GET the point - its a stunningly ridiculous point... a laughable point .... a nit-picky time-wasting point..... a pointless-point...

show the blooming tenancy agreement and be done with it......

if you come on a forum expect folks to respond in whatever way they see fit.... you cannot control others' behaviour in that respect.. you cannot "order" folks to not post

this is a public democratic forum...

you may not like all the answers you get.. simples..

As it happens Clutton, the point is the precedent that would be set were the council to disagree with a clause in the agreement. The 'in front of the window' clause was chosen purely to exaggerate the point. Setting precedents in law is certainly NOT not-picking.

You are quite right on one point though: it is a public forum. The answers and responses may not be what I was after, but to put it in a money context my query was like a new person coming on here to establish the price of potatoes and ending up arguing about the price of fish.

Wee_Willy_Harris

Barry_D wrote: »

As it happens Clutton, the point is the precedent that would be set were the council to disagree with a clause in the agreement. The 'in front of the window' clause was chosen purely to exaggerate the point. Setting precedents in law is certainly NOT not-picking.

You are quite right on one point though: it is a public forum. The answers and responses may not be what I was after, but to put it in a money context my query was like a new person coming on here to establish the price of potatoes and ending up arguing about the price of fish.

Council Tax will have no interest in any clauses that don't effect Council Tax liability. They aren't experts in the inner workings of tenancies, but just want to administer the Council Tax bill in the most efficient manner possible. To that end, they will use the C/tax bill for that reason only. The only justification, under the DPA, for using any other information contained within the t/agg would be the prevention of crime. So, unless you have a potentially criminal clause in your t/agrrement, there would be no reason not to resolve this simple matter in the manner requested.

Barry_D

Yorkie1 wrote: »

You have been provided with a quote from the relevant piece of legislation.

You then tell us that you were already aware of that legislation; makes your initial question completely pointless, then.

Either you understand the legislation, and don't like it, therefore consider it doesn't apply to you. Or you don't understand it and therefore aren't prepared to take the advice of people constantly banging their heads against a brick wall to try to get the message through your thick skull.


The points to note in the legislation are that the authority can specify what information it requires to establish who is liable, and for what period, and in what form it needs that information. The person to whom the request is made must ("shall") supply it in the way required.

It has stipulated that the tenancy agreement is what it requires. The law requires the person to comply.

If you and your tenant want to waste more taxpayers money in trying to argue the toss then I sincerely hope it's not my council you're bothering. They are doing their job, within the law and if you don't like it then tough. Get elected and amend the law rather than wasting more taxpayer's money.

OK Yorkie - there are Regulations and Acts. Broadly speaking, Acts set out out the framework of legislation and Regulations supplement it. Acts and Regulations can be cross-referenced/enhanced/superseded/supplemented/amended by other Acts and Regulations. It is not a question of me not liking or disagreeing with what I have been told it is a question of me wanting to understand the framework of legislation surrounding council tax - i.e. the Regulations (referred to) and the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and other relevant legislation.

Thick skull? No.
Council doing its job? In the loosest and most inefficient possible definition of the phrase, maybe.

By the way - are 'shall' and 'must' interchangeable in law?

Wee_Willy_Harris

There are people who drive down the motorway, in snow and ice, thick fog, 30m visibility at 70mph, and tell you "well, I'm not breaking the law"... Are you one of those people, Barry?

Barry_D

Wee_Willy_Harris wrote: »

Council Tax will have no interest in any clauses that don't effect Council Tax liability. They aren't experts in the inner workings of tenancies, but just want to administer the Council Tax bill in the most efficient manner possible. To that end, they will use the C/tax bill for that reason only. The only justification, under the DPA, for using any other information contained within the t/agg would be the prevention of crime. So, unless you have a potentially criminal clause in your t/agrrement, there would be no reason not to resolve this simple matter in the manner requested.

Totally agree - but if a tenancy agreement is unenforceable (for example, perhaps because of the way it has been written) then the tenant(s) may not be legal tenants, may become sitting tenants, may leave without notice, may sublet, or whatever. If the council uses such a tenancy agreement to determine liability they may not necessarily be heading in the right direction.

The council tax officers would have no way of knowing whether a tenancy agreement is legal or not unless they had it scrutinised by their legal team - and then that has the potential to open up a whole new can of worms.

Barry_D

Wee_Willy_Harris wrote: »

There are people who drive down the motorway, in snow and ice, thick fog, 30m visibility at 70mph, and tell you "well, I'm not breaking the law"... Are you one of those people, Barry?

well, sometimes, just sometimes, common sense prevails....!

(but then isn't the activity you describe reckless driving - which is against the law?)

Wee_Willy_Harris

Barry_D wrote: »

Totally agree - but if a tenancy agreement is unenforceable (for example, perhaps because of the way it has been written) then the tenant(s) may not be legal tenants, may become sitting tenants, may leave without notice, may sublet, or whatever. If the council uses such a tenancy agreement to determine liability they may not necessarily be heading in the right direction.

The council tax officers would have no way of knowing whether a tenancy agreement is legal or not unless they had it scrutinised by their legal team - and then that has the potential to open up a whole new can of worms.

Regardless of what your tenancy agreement says, in basic terms, if the occupation complies with the 1988 Housing Act definition of a tenancy, then it's a tenancy. In basic terms, the exchange of rent for exclusive occupation is a tenancy, regardless of what either the LL or the tenant may believe. Any "unusual" clauses that may differ from that may well be unenforceable, but they will be very, very unlikley to void a tenancy.