Grossly unfair retrospective council tax demand for vacant property

Popsicle64

Hi. In mid-January I notified the local council that my second property was up for sale and was vacant, pending the sale. I was told there would be no council tax charge made for the following 6 months. I subsequently received a letter in February telling me of "Council Tax Empty Homes Changes 1 April 2013". The letter says:

"A phased approach will be applied to empty and unfurnished properties:

- 100%discount for month 1
- 50%discount for month 2
- 25%discount for month 3
- 0% discount thereafter

These changes will come into effect on 1 April 2013 and will revoke any previous exemption period. According to the Council's records, you will be affected by these changes and will be liable for Council Tax from 1 April 2013".

To my mind – and that of others I have asked, I therefore expected April to be free of charge, followed by 50% charge in May, 75% charge in June and 100% charge thereafter – BUT NO!! The council tell me that the charges – and discounts – were actually applied from when I notified them of the property being vacant, and that I now owe them retrospectively. I have asked for a letter to include the full details, but currently it sounds like I have to pay in the region of £300, as they have "back-dated" the changes to the date from which I told them the property was empty.

Please can someone give me advice?! I am prepared to pay for what I owe from April, but don't see how I can be told in January that there will be no charge for 6 months, to then be told in February that there will be charges from April – to now be told that I owe retrospectively (i.e. back-dated to mid-January). Surely this cannot be withheld? I spoke with 3 people at the council, including the "Customer Services and Recovery Manager",who all tell me the same thing and that nothing can be done about it! Help would be appreciated – thank you!

Red_dog_Sam

In January, the Council would've known about the changes it had planned. You got the standard advice based on the old exempt class C but they didn't take into account the impending change - so the advice you got in January was always going to be wrong if it didn't take the 1st April changes into account. That doesn't change the fact that the charging scheme has now changed so you are going to get billed.

The new scheme won't backdate charges to last year, but when working out what level to charge under the staggered charging scheme, it does start counting the empty period from when the property actually became empty and not from 1st April 2013.

So, based on the above, if your property became empty on 15/01/13, then as at 01/04/13 it's in month 3 so you get charged from 01/04/13 at the 25% discount rate for the two weeks until 15/04/13 when the 3 months is up and the discount runs out entirely.

You are only being charged for 2013/14 so it's not that you are paying for last year. But you are paying this years under new rules that weren't in place back in January.

These phased charging schemes vary from council to council. Some Councils now also charge a premium, for example double charge after 1 or 2 years being empty - and properties already empty that long on 1st April 2013 would've gone straight into that category.

CIS

Please can someone give me advice?! I am prepared to pay for what I owe from April, but don't see how I can be told in January that there will be no charge for 6 months, to then be told in February that there will be charges from April – to now be told that I owe retrospectively (i.e. back-dated to mid-January). Surely this cannot be withheld

A ongoing council tax demand notice is only ever issued based on the current circumstances (its required under legislation) so they had to issue you with the notice showing the exemption as it stood at the time.

As the previous post has advise in January the vast majority of council's wouldn't have decided on the changes - most didn't get the Ok from the councillors until Feb/Mar time.

Any discount under the scheme from 1 April 2013 can take in to account the time that the property has already been unoccupied and unfurnished when determining any discount , the decision rests solely with the local authority.

Any changes prior to April 13 are not down to the revised discounts and there must be another reason for it - a lot of councils have taken the opportunity to check that exemptions prior to April have been applied correctly and have adjusted ones which are wrong.