Housemates not paying council tax

PatrickStar

I am a student living with 3 non-students in a house share. We agreed to split the council tax by 4, and each pay the amount into our joint account so that it could be paid by direct debit today.

I paid in my amount, as did one of the others. One has underpaid by £5 and one just hasn't paid at all, so the direct debit has bounced.

What will happen now? If they don't pay up will the two of us who paid get into trouble as well? I am a student so I think I am safe, but the girl who has paid is now getting really worried in case we get taken to court.

Any thoughts?

monty-doggy

Whose name is the council tax bill in? Have you tried contacting the council?

BitterAndTwisted

Having a joint bank account with people you have no direct relationship with is foolish. This could cause you more trouble than non-payment of the Council Tax.

As you're a student you have no direct liability for C Tax but your other tenant is justified in being worried about it. Fortunately, if you pay over ten months as opposed to twelve, this is the last payment for the current financial year, so what the Council is likely to do is issue a final demand for the missing payment before issuing a summons for it. Meanwhile start applying thumb-screws to the non-payer and maybe start worrying about non-payment of the utilities if they're paid via the joint-account as well.

Annisele

I agree with B&T that the joint account is likely to cause you far more problems than the council tax - I'd rather pay all the bills in cash then have a joint account with somebody I wasn't married to.

I think that in the short term, B&T's thumbscrew plan is the best one (so long as you don't take her too literally).

PatrickStar

The joint account has already caused so many problems. We were recommended to set it up by our letting agents. We are hoping to move out soon and take our names off everything. I really never imagined I'd end up living with people who think it's perfectly acceptable to not pay bills on time (this is the third time it's happened in three months). Well... lesson learnt. Won't be doing that again.

This is the first time I've ever had to pay council tax, so I'm a bit confused. We got a letter last month saying that it would come out in January, February and March. I was under the impression that this was for the entire year. Now I'm very confused...

BitterAndTwisted

When did you all move into the property? From what you've said, it's not likely that you've been there since the first of April 2013.

If you move into a property after the CTax year starts, the Council will send you a bill charging you from the day the tenancy started and expect you to pay everything owed in equal tranches by the end of March. For long-term occupants this will be from April to January but some occupants can pay April to the following March if they ask

PatrickStar

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

When did you all move into the property? From what you've said, it's not likely that you've been there since the first of April 2013.

If you move into a property after the CTax year starts, the Council will send you a bill charging you from the day the tenancy started and expect you to pay everything owed in equal tranches by the end of March. For long-term occupants this will be from April to January but some occupants can pay April to the following March if they ask

Ah I see, that makes sense. We've lived here since September. Well this makes things slightly more tricky then.

ging84

my experience of forgetting to pay quite often before i went to direct debit was that very little would happen until you were at least 2 month behind, they might have tightened up on things these days though as payment systems are much faster and councils are a little cash strapped

BitterAndTwisted

Round here if you miss one payment they start sending out demands for balance of the whole year's CTax bill. Fortunately for the OP that's just the one payment. Having to find the money for the rest of a year's CTax when you haven't budgeted for it isn't a laughing matter.

OP: under the circs I'd be calling a house meeting and discussing making arrangements for each of you to take on responsibility for one bill each and then get that joint bank account closed asap

Kynthia

Do you have your exemption certificate from your university?

Guest101

Kynthia wrote: »

Do you have your exemption certificate from your university?

Not always necessary. The local uni here provides a list of students to the council, but worth checking