Student Houses - does the landlord pay council tax?

Numberlock

Apologies if my question is not on the correct forum. My student son and his housemates were renting a house and were exempt from paying Council Tax. They were renting a small 3 bedroom house. Their landlord owns and lets out dozens of properties all over the same town to students only.

My query is: does this mean that all these properties do not generate income for the council whatsoever?

mchale

If tenants supply a CT exemption form no CT is Payable

G_M

Liability to CT lies with the occupant, not the owner/landlord.

If the occupant is exempt, then CT is obviously not payable.

Numberlock

Yes, that's my point which I didn't make very well....if this particular landlord has dozens of properties which he ONLY lets out to students then the council is losing a lot of money, surely?

If the same landlord rented all his properties out to regular tenants then the council would receive all monies due. Correct, yes?

PasturesNew

You are correct. But a lot of LLs have deliberately targetted students because they can squeeze more of them into the houses, so make more money from them - and often they get the houses back for 1-2 months in the summer so they can fix anything.

Mojisola

Numberlock wrote: »

Yes, that's my point which I didn't make very well....if this particular landlord has dozens of properties which he ONLY lets out to students then the council is losing a lot of money, surely?

If the same landlord rented all his properties out to regular tenants then the council would receive all monies due. Correct, yes?

Yes, unless the other tenants were entitled to Council Tax rebates.

jd87

Yes numberlock, that's correct. But of course students do generate money for the local economy in other ways and the country generally encourages people to study. That's why students don't have to pay it.

G_M

Yes but then the students would be living somewhere else and not paying CT wherever that was.

When councils do their annual budgets, they take into account their projected income, and plan their expenditure accordingly. As part of that calculation they will assume that X% of the total properties in their area will be exempt from CT, due to
* Occupants on low income getting CT relief
* students
* temporarily empty during renovation
* 25% reduced CT due to single occupancy
* etc

I'm not clear if your concern is for the loss of income for the council (dealt with above), or is somehow blaming the landlord - who of course has NO CT liability whoever his tenants are?

bris

Yes, but the LL wouldn't be paying it any way, the CT is payable by the tenant if they were not students so makes no difference one way or the other to the LL.
The council will not receive any tax from any student accomodation, not just your sons LL, there will be hundreds of them.

Numberlock

My problem with this particular situation is that someone can own dozens of properties, cram 4 -5 students into a house which is really only suitable for 3 people (for example) and charge extortionate rent and yet that landlord is not liable to pay a tax in lieu of Council Tax. What a loophole, that is!

Of course students should be exempt from Council Tax but I do think the landlord should contribute as, in my opinion, the local town is losing out because all these properties are not contributing to the Council's coffers. Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

mchale

G_M wrote: »

Liability to CT lies with the occupant, not the owner/landlord.

If property is a HMO liability is with the LL.