Council tax on two homes

DKNY2012

My wife and I have separate homes, hers in the South and mine in the North. She has her dentist, doctor and hospital in the South and mine are in the North. Likewise her furniture and most of her possessions are in her house and mine are in mine. We spend most of our time together, roughly 50/50 between the two houses. We currently claim 25% discount on our council taxes because that seems fair but is it correct?

If we both claimed to live in both houses we could vote twice!

agrinnall

I think from other posts that I've seen on here that it's not correct to claim the discount on both properties. As you live together you should be nominating one property as your main home and paying full CT on that one, and the other as a second home and claiming whatever (if any) discount is offered on that. But don't take my word for it, wait for the CT experts to post to get the definitive answer.

CLAPTON

with two homes you are indeed allowed to vote in council election for both places: in national elections you can vote in either but not both

CIS

I think from other posts that I've seen on here that it's not correct to claim the discount on both properties

It depends if the two of them are leading separate lives and have their own homes or if one of them is living away from their home address only for work purposes.

agrinnall

CIS wrote: »

It depends if the two of them are leading separate lives and have their own homes or if one of them is living away from their home address only for work purposes.

It would seem this is not the case.

DKNY2012 wrote: »

We spend most of our time together, roughly 50/50 between the two houses.

Haemonchus

Unless things are different in your area, you surely need to be paying full tax on one of the properties and claiming the other as the discounted second home. And if you were to claim that each still retained their own primary residence, then you would need to pay both at the full rate! I can't see any scenario where you can claim both at the lower rate.

p00hsticks

agrinnall wrote: »

I think from other posts that I've seen on here that it's not correct to claim the discount on both properties. As you live together you should be nominating one property as your main home and paying full CT on that one, and the other as a second home and claiming whatever (if any) discount is offered on that. But don't take my word for it, wait for the CT experts to post to get the definitive answer.

I'm not a CT expert, but I do agree with you, with one slight exception - I beleive the criteria for tax purposes (unlike benefit purposes) is that they are actually married, NOT that they are living together.

agrinnall

p00hsticks wrote: »

I'm not a CT expert, but I do agree with you, with one slight exception - I beleive the criteria for tax purposes (unlike benefit purposes) is that they are actually married, NOT that they are living together.

Surely not for CT, where it is the makeup of the household that matters, not what their relationship is. Although I'm also not in any way an expert so we'll see if CIS returns to comment further.

John_Pierpoint

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