Council tax and dodgy landlord

katepower

Hello all....

Around 6 months ago I moved into a multi-occupancy let. I was the only working person in the house - the rest were students. Therefore I knew it was my responsibility to set up the council tax - which I tried to do around 3 times. I never heard anything....(which I now know was because the council tax was in the landlords name and address, not mine, and the council cannot discuss details with someone who is not the account holder)....

Six months later and I have moved out of the shared house. I suddenly get a very angry letter from the property management company saying that I owe the landlord hundreds of pounds for unpaid council tax and I am being taken to court over this. He is not willing to discuss it very much so i ring the local council.

Again they cannot discuss too much detail with me, but they said that the landlord is in fact liable for the council tax as it is in his name, and as it is a multi-occupancy let then this is also why it is in his name, as it usually too complicated to get 3 or 4 people to sort this out between them...he then said that if anyone is getting taken to court then it is the LANDLORD, not me, and that he will have had warning letters prior to this and should have contacted me but didnt. He then said that the landlord can then take me to court for non payment if i refuse to do this.

Overall I am happy to pay the council tax as I honestly know that I owe it, however it is 6/7 months of council tax and I dont have £500 or so spare...i am happy to pay in installments of say £50 a month as I have my own house now, but wasnt sure whether I would be within my rights to do this. I am worried that the landlord has me over a barrell and will demand payment upfront, which obviously i cannot do I would just like to know where i stand

CIS

As far as council tax law is concerned the landlord is responsible and the council will pursue him.

Any personal agreement you had with the landlord is purely that, it doesn't affect the legal responsibility for the council tax. He would need to sue you in a county court for breech of contract.

katepower

Ok brilliant, so in terms of setting up an arrangement of small installments, do you think this is likely? Or could he just demand it up front and take me to court for this? Many thanks for you help, it has cleared things up for me a bit

CIS

Ok brilliant, so in terms of setting up an arrangement of small installments, do you think this is likely? Or could he just demand it up front and take me to court for this? Many thanks for you help, it has cleared things up for me a bit

That's up to the landlord but the courts expect that he would try and resolve the issue first.

katepower

ok, thankyou. i was concerned as i work in an occupation where you CANNOT be in debt or be bad with money so i was concerned that this would get me into trouble re: debt management but obviously not the case. Thankyou so much

jamesd

Why would you choose to pay the Council Tax? Did you have a tenancy agreement which said that you would pay the landlord for it in addition to the agreed rent? Any other form of agreement between you that you would pay this as an amount in addition to the rent, which should have been set including a portion for any Council Tax liability? What did the agreement say about how the extra payment would go up and down depending on how many non-student tenants the landlord had in the property?

If the landlord takes you to court they will need some evidence that you had agreed to pay the Council Tax.

katepower

I have looked through my AST and with regards specifically to council tax, it says that I must notify the local authority as soon as I move in regarding this...which I did. The rest deals with if I dont pay council tax, they will take it out of my deposit. However the landlord FORGOT to ask me for this when I moved in, so I highly doubt he will be able to do that.

The rest of it is regarding general services and charges so I'm not sure how much council tax comes under that?

jamesd

Looks as though the landlord and agent used an incorrect AST for the situation, one intended for non-shared properties where the tenant would be liable for the Council Tax.

From your initial post I think that you did expect to pay the Council Tax yourself, so didn't think that it was included in the rent, as could have been expected by someone who knew that it was really the landlord who had the liability for it.

What I suggest you do is tell them that you notified the Council as required by the AST and that the council would know from your notification that you were not a student and that the landlord had a Council Tax liability. Ask them what part of the AST overrides the legal fact that the landlord was the party liable to pay any Council Tax that was due and what would give you or any other tenant some clue that the landlord hadn't considered that in setting the rental price for the room.

Then offer to pay the Council Tax at whatever rate you can easily afford to pay it at and suggest that they sort out their ASTs so they use the right one for the situation if they do this again.

Was the place normally used only for students? Landlords of such places are often reluctant to have non-student tenants because of the messy Council Tax handling, where the amount they need to include in each tenant's rent depends on how many non-students are in the property - or more accurately, depending on local market conditions that would include landlords having to price it in. For a non-student place the landlord takes the risk of vacant rooms including the risk of the Council Tax to be paid even if only one room is in use. If it wasn't normally only for students the landlord would have been getting some extra windfall profit from having only students in there for a while, but them also paying a rent for a place where there were non-student tenants.