what would happen if we didn't pay our last month's rent and council tax

hb2007_2

I recently moved and forgot to tell the council. I stopped paying council tax to them (I had registered at my new address and paid tax in my new area). I didnt get any reminders, first letter I had from them was a summons.
They seemed very eager to go to court! (it was dropped after I was able to prove I had moved)

loveandlight

You will all be jointly and severally liable for each other. That is to say if any of you don't or won't pay then the landlord can look to the remaining people to recoup his monies. If you are the one that's left then the landlord can look to you for any and all monies outstanding. It will then be left to you to recoup it from the other people you shared with. It depends how much you value your credit rating as well as the landlord will be able to record on your credit file that you owe him/her money.

kingmonkey

People have gone to prison for not paying council tax although a peodophile didn't go to prison recently.

masonic

kingmonkey wrote:

People have gone to prison for not paying council tax although a peodophile didn't go to prison recently.

The paedophile probably paid his council tax.

prudryden

As Liz says above, it might be a very good idea to have a word with your landlord, if you think he is a reasonable person. Review your tenancy agreement as to what it says about cleaning and review your copy of the check in Inventory/Condition Report - which is the KEY document when it comes to your deposit.
The landlord will not be amused if you try to use the deposit for the last month's rent as it would be a breach of the contract, and will set the temper of any future discussions.

anniecave

if you are this far through a council tax year have you checked how many installments you pay per year? If you pay less than 12 installments then you may already be in credit depending on your moving out date. Eg in birmingham we only pay 10 installments so we've now paid in full. If we we were moving out in mid Feb and hadn't paid our last month we'd probably still be in credit.

I'd speak to the other tennants regarding rent. Failing that, I'd speak to landlord, as you may be able to come to an agreement if they owe a months rent but are owed a deposit back, the landlord may agree to offset the two (if they are the same value) if you ask him.

anniecave

re council tax if you pay in less than 12 installments then you need to work out the bill for the year on a daily basis (eg if it's £1095 per full year that's £3 per day so if you only owe for 6 apr 06 to 15 feb 07 that's 315 days at £3 per day = £945) and then look at what you've paid so far

anniecave

years of practice of moving in and out of properties over the summer!

sophlowe45

Ah we have no inventory/condition report document...we only have a shared tenancy agreement...

our deposit is one month's rent each - i'll speak to the landlord - problem is he doesn't speak much English so how i'm going to explain all this is worrying me!!

thanks for the replies didn't expect quite so many replies!!

prudryden

sophlowe45 wrote:

Ah we have no inventory/condition report document...we only have a shared tenancy agreement...

our deposit is one month's rent each - i'll speak to the landlord - problem is he doesn't speak much English so how i'm going to explain all this is worrying me!!

thanks for the replies didn't expect quite so many replies!!

Ummm! Well then, if there was no condition report, then the LL will be streching it a bit to try and withhold anything from the deposit. Did you go through a letting agency or directly with the LL?