Council Tax chasing Landlord.

mattgad

Hi,

I hope this is the right forum to post in to get advice on this issue. Myself and my partner moved into a rented house last August. We are both full time students, and were told by the university that they automatically send off our student statuses to the council, and that we did not have to do anything. We also registered ourselves on the census that came round, and removed the old tenant from the list.

Our landlord has owned this house for many years but not lived in it. A letter came for him in October last year, and we text him to tell him that letters had arrived, but he did not respond. A few more came, and he did not respond to any texts about them, so I assumed he didn't want them.

So he came round yesterday and opened one up. The council were saying that he did not pay council tax for the property in May, and it was just a letter asking him to pay up. He told me to put all of the other letters in the bin, as they would all be the same. I didn't, I opened them all, and he'll probably be glad that I did.

After ordering them all by date, the story is:
- Council bill arrived in October.
- Reminder notice arrives in November.
- In January, a notice arrives to summon him to a Magistrates sitting.
- In late January, a notice arrives to say he did not attend, and that he owes the money or they will instruct bailiffs to visit the property.
- In March, a notice of exemption arrives to say the house was to be exempt from council tax between August and the end of January, as it has been empty for 6 months.
- More bills arrive, and the whole thing seems to start up again.

Obviously our landlord is not at fault because he does not live here. I feel really guilty now because the council must have a bad mark against his name now - I'm starting to think now that I should have directly informed the council myself that I lived here.

I'm really not sure whether this is a council mess up as they seem to have realised later on that he does not live here, for the reason that the house is empty (which is not true), but then still continue to send him tax bills. Why did they keep writing to his name, and set up court proceedings, etc, before writing a letter address to the occupier, who would have opened it and been able to deal with it? It seems silly for them not to have done that.

I really don't want my landlord to get into any trouble. I am going to write directly to the council to explain that we live here, and have done since August, and enclose proof of student status. Is there anything else that I should do, or tell my Landlord to do?

Thanks.

CIS

I'm really not sure whether this is a council mess up as they seem to have realised later on that he does not live here, for the reason that the house is empty (which is not true), but then still continue to send him tax bills. Why did they keep writing to his name, and set up court proceedings, etc, before writing a letter address to the occupier, who would have opened it and been able to deal with it? It seems silly for them not to have done that.

The fault appears to between yourselves and the landlord - he should have advised the council he had tenants and you should have advised the council you were tenants.

The council will take action against the last known liable parties until they are satisfied that someone else should be responsible for the council tax. If the landlord has not supplied a contact address then they will contact the last known address.

Red_dog_Sam

The university may well send a list of students to the council which they can use to verify student status but the exemption is not automatic - it needs to be claimed. As the tenants you are liable for the council tax but as full time students can claim the student exemption. This can be backdated so you can still sort this out by notifying the council of when you took up the tenancy and providing the name of your uni , course title and course dates to verify against the list they hold so you can receive your student exemption.