Council Tax query

seahorse61

Hi

Great forum. Wonder if anybody knows the answer to my question - perhaps a council tax expert?

If you are staying in a shared flat for 2-3 months, do you need to register with the council yourself to pay council tax for your share of the property's council tax bill, or is this done by the main tenant who organises the flat?

Also, are you 100% definitely eligible to pay council tax for your time in the flat, if your stay is arranged in an ad hoc way and you weren't there for a chunk of the time? If you start off staying there for a few weeks, are then absent for a month staying elsewhere, and then go back to the place and agree to stay there a bit longer, which then gets extended.

Thanks very much in advance!

McKneff

Are you staying as a lodger, with a friend, as a tenant, as just a guest, does the owner of the flat also rent, or own, do they claim 25% council tax discount.

seahorse61

The flat is rented. There has been a turnover of people in my time here, of students - I have not been involved in arrangements on the council tax side.

jacques_chirac

Is it your primary residence?

Are you the only non student?

No need to worry about your privacy, as long as you are not giving names and locations no one here knows who you are.

seahorse61

Yes, I'm the only non-student.

My friend is away, I heard one of the others suggest that they (the others) are on a student discount. I have not been involved on the council tax side as mentioned, but guess it can therefore be taken this is definitely the case, about the student discount.

I don't know all the differences between what the council might see as a 'guest' or 'resident' (sometimes people in flats might even be a 'contributing or paying guest', maybe). As mentioned, in what has turned out to be my time here, I have not been here all the time as I went travelling for nearly a month. The other thing is that I am now going to stay elsewhere permanently. (PM would be the way to go for anything more specific?.)

jacques_chirac

Do you have a main residence elsewhere?

seahorse61

@jacqueschirac - No, I don't. Does this count as main residence? I've also stayed in a hostel for a few nights for a change, in one week when I have been here.

jacques_chirac

seahorse61 wrote: »

No. Does this count as main residence? I've also stayed in a hostel for a few nights for a change, in one week when I have been here.

I would suggest calling your local authority and asking them to determine this. You must give them all the information though, it is impossible to make a determination when being drip fed information!

pmlindyloo

seahorse61 wrote: »

Hi

Great forum. Wonder if anybody knows the answer to my question - perhaps a council tax expert?

If you are staying in a shared flat for 2-3 months, do you need to register with the council yourself to pay council tax for your share of the property's council tax bill, or is this done by the main tenant who organises the flat?

Also, are you 100% definitely eligible to pay council tax for your time in the flat, if your stay is arranged in an ad hoc way and you weren't there for a chunk of the time? If you start off staying there for a few weeks, are then absent for a month staying elsewhere, and then go back to the place and agree to stay there a bit longer, which then gets extended.

Thanks very much in advance!

What everybody is trying to work out is whether you are liable for council tax or not.

Have you signed any kind of tenancy agreement? Lodger's agreement? Are you sub letting from one of the other tenants? Are you paying rent? Does the landlord know you are there?

What address do you use for your bank account/work/driving licence/that kind of thing? Are you on the electoral roll at that address? Have you got your own room there and leave your things there when you go away?

If you can show that you are not resident there but are resident elsewhere then you are not liable for council tax. If the council can prove that you are resident there then you will be liable for council tax and, what's more, if all the others are students you will be liable for the whole lot as they are discounted!

Just one other possible scenario - how many people in this house share? Do they all have separate tenancy agreements? If it is classed as a House of Multiple Occupation then the landlord may be responsible for the council tax.


Complicated isn't it?

HappyMJ

If it's a big student house then it's likely the bill could be in the thousands of pounds. i.e it won't be a Band A property. Can you look the band up on the VOA website? http://www.voa.gov.uk/cti/

seahorse61

Thanks for various replies. I am sure you'll appreciate this is a public forum and I am not being funny, but like others I need to be circumspect about private details in public. There is always PM...

It does sound potentially complicated but I wonder if the matter can't be boiled down to a couple of basic scenarios that people could advise on?

Regarding the basis on which I am here, there is nothing in writing, it's not that kind of arrangement. It's a student flat where (everything points to this) the students are left to organise who pays the council tax themselves. The landlord is somewhere in the background and leaves them to it.

For someone who probably has no responsibility of their own to independently declare where I'm staying to the council (it is probably the students' responsibility?), it sounds like the scenario could be well over the top - but I wonder if some of people's projections are not over the top. As stated, I have only been here for a short time and was away quite a bit, and I am now going elsewhere (this time for a proper place to live). This place is a student flat for several people.

One key point: if the student discount is affected by my being here - without my being aware of this!! - a) surely that would not remove the *entire* discount for the period I have been here; and b) would I be liable for this when it wasn't down to me to go and tell someone other than people in the flat that I was here? (Don't forget, it has been an ad hoc arrangement and the time of being here was increased bit by bit, I didn't know it would be more than a few weeks originally).

Thanks for your feedback so far.