Council tax exemption?

roger177

I've just received a letter from the council saying that they have been informed that I am a full time student and am exempt from paying council tax but I have to send them a certificate declaring this that i can get from student registry. The thing is though I am registered as a part time student as I am resitting this year but I am still getting a student loan which you should only get if you are a full time student. So what I want to know is if i'm eligible for council tax discount/exemption.

jane22

No, only full time students are eligible. You need to get a statement from registry stating how many contact hours (i.e. lectures / tutorials) you have a week. It must be over 22 in most boroughs/areas in order to get the exemption. It entirely depends on the letter you get from your uni. mine says 'full time students - 35 hours a week' so that exempts me, it needs to say both 'full time' and '22+ hours' a week for exemption to be valid. Sorry! HTH though.

CIS

It entirely depends on the letter you get from your uni. mine says 'full time students - 35 hours a week' so that exempts me, it needs to say both 'full time' and '22+ hours' a week for exemption to be valid.

It depends on the council as to what proof they want, as long as the student form we get states F/T we give it. The actual criteria for qualifying are set by central government.

Darksun

jane22 wrote:

No, only full time students are eligible. You need to get a statement from registry stating how many contact hours (i.e. lectures / tutorials) you have a week. It must be over 22 in most boroughs/areas in order to get the exemption. It entirely depends on the letter you get from your uni. mine says 'full time students - 35 hours a week' so that exempts me, it needs to say both 'full time' and '22+ hours' a week for exemption to be valid. Sorry! HTH though.

Are you sure about these numbers? Contact hours can vary quite drastically from course to course. I'm a full time student, and this term I only have 10 contact hours per week (but a lot of work to do outside of these hours).

My uni sent off a notification for council tax exemption and it was accepted by the tax office.

Oompa_Loompa_2

It doesn't matter what amount of hours you have each week - the only thing that matters is whether you are registered as a part-time or a full-time student. If you are full-time, you will be exempt. My friend asked the Registry to print off a form and although she was part-time, she was down as full-time and therefore didn't have to pay council tax. This may be worth a try.

janine22

As per above post, my OH was registered as a part-time student due to resits, he was also in F/T employment but gained Council Tax exemption as the Uni office just issued a full time student Certificate.

If your course is F/T but you're just P/T this year, you are likely to be issued with a F/T certificate.

CIS

It doesn't matter what amount of hours you have each week - the only thing that matters is whether you are registered as a part-time or a full-time student. If you are full-time, you will be exempt. My friend asked the Registry to print off a form and although she was part-time, she was down as full-time and therefore didn't have to pay council tax. This may be worth a try.

Technically you need to be a student for over 22hrs per week , less than that and it doesn't matter if the uni class you as F/T or P/T, the regs state no student discount/exemption.

Realistically, as long as the uni state full time, the council wont usually refuse, although, saying that, if I come across a F/T cert with less than 22hrs shown, I wont give the discount/exemption.

roger177

I went to the student registry office today and they printed me off a certificate stating that I was a full time student, they said that if you do resits then you will be exempt from paying council tax.

Oldernotwiser

CIS wrote:

Technically you need to be a student for over 22hrs per week , less than that and it doesn't matter if the uni class you as F/T or P/T, the regs state no student discount/exemption.

Realistically, as long as the uni state full time, the council wont usually refuse, although, saying that, if I come across a F/T cert with less than 22hrs shown, I wont give the discount/exemption.

If you needed 22+ contact hours to be classed as a full time student then very few Arts/Humanities students would qualify. This would be an unheard of number of contact hours for someone studying these subjects! Number of hours study is quite a different matter and this is where the misunderstandings are arising.

elisebutt65

CIS wrote:

Technically you need to be a student for over 22hrs per week , less than that and it doesn't matter if the uni class you as F/T or P/T, the regs state no student discount/exemption.

Well my final year timetable only gives me 7 hours contact a week but that's spread over 3 days and so much expected in our own time. I also do an additional 3 hours for Spanish on one of my free days. Our certificate from Uni just states Full or part time with no mention of hours.