Not paying Council Tax - should I say nowt??

nollag2006

I've moved into a property during the Summer, which has never been occupied since it was built about 5 years ago.

I haven't yet received a council tax bill there, so was about to contact the council, when I came across Martin's article on cutting Council tax by referencing the VOA website.

Having gone on to the VOA website, my property does not appear, but all my new neighbours' flats do !!!!

So my query is, if I say nowt, will the council find out ? Am I under any legal obligation to tell the council of their error ?

The non-existance of the property didn't cause an issue during the purchase, so it shouldn't cause a problem again in selling on.

Any thoughts ??

RayWolfe

If you want everyone else to pay your share of your tax then carry on. But breaking the law is never a good idea.

James&Shell

Its the best thing to do,

It would be better to pay it now rather than later and et a even bigger bill

hodgester

nollag2006 wrote:

I've moved into a property during the Summer, which has never been occupied since it was built about 5 years ago.

I haven't yet received a council tax bill there, so was about to contact the council, when I came across Martin's article on cutting Council tax by referencing the VOA website.

Having gone on to the VOA website, my property does not appear, but all my new neighbours' flats do !!!!

So my query is, if I say nowt, will the council find out ? Am I under any legal obligation to tell the council of their error ?

The non-existance of the property didn't cause an issue during the purchase, so it shouldn't cause a problem again in selling on.

Any thoughts ??

if you tell the council now, you may get an opportunity to pay in instalments. Leave it until after xmas and you will get a bill for the whole amount, payable immediately.

You will get found out, it may take years, but when they do, you will get a bill for the whole period with no instalments as it is backdated tax.

A guy did this recently at my council. Band H property it was, back to 1997. Have a bill for £14,00 we said, no instalments.. That hurt him ..

Petmidget

They cant bill you if your property doesnt appear on the ratings list. So that will need amending first, which can take 9-12 months.

I had a client a few years back who's property (commercial) was a conversion, it didnt appear on the ratings list and even after they informed council nothing was done, they didnt pay rates for 10+ years. When they eventually got a bill (£50k+), they successfully defended only having to pay last 2 years or so as it was councils fault for not keeping accurate records.

But overall I would say tell them, if they twig on in 2 years time, you will get landed with a pretty hefty bill and not much chance of wriggling out of it.

RayWolfe

Petmidget wrote:

But overall I would say tell them, if they twig on in 2 years time, you will get landed with a pretty hefty bill and not much chance of wriggling out of it.

Wriggling out of it!
Is it just me, or is there a certain lack of morality operating here? Tax avoidance in a legitimate pursuit but knowing you're not paying tax that you should be and asking if you can get away with it just leaves me cold. If I get taxable income that the tax man doesn't know about and I don't tell him, is that wriggling out or just plain fraud?

Robert_Sterling

The council may think you have been there since it was first built!

CIS

You need to ask the Council to raise the property with the Valuations office (It can take a few month) and ask them to put you on a temporary banding until its sorted.

Maximillion

My last two houses have been new builds - it can take them a while to catch up but as other posters have said they are less than sumpathetic when a ruddy great bill eventually does land on your mat. you may already have a big bill waiting in the pipeline so I would suggest if you aren't going to tell them you should at least start banking mock payments so you can deal with the bill when it does come.

nollag2006

Cool ! Thanks all !

Will let them know and start salting away £100 per month for the bill when it comes. Knowing how lazy and inept the council is, it could be a long time coming !!!

silvercar

there has been a recent ruling on properties found to have unregistered gas or electric meters. On registering, they can only be billed for upto 2 missed years of payment. I don't know if the same applies to council tax.