Council Tax help please

StudiousStudent

My first post and the reason I joined...

I am a full time student in my first year at uni. I have applied for and received all the student loans and grants I am entitled to from SFE. I have a problem with Council Tax. My local council have said I am liable for full council tax and have sent me a bill for £106 a month. I live with my two adult children and my eight year old son.

M is 22 and in receipt of ESA. He is currently at college three days a week on a special needs passport course to hopefully give him some skills to be able to get a job. He has Aspergers.

D is 19 and in receipt of JSA. (He is lazy and needs his head banging against a wall. I'm trying but nothing is working. He's currently sanctioned for missing an appointment.)

J is 8.

My council say that because I have M and D living at home that I now have to pay full council tax, and it seems they have used my student loan and tax credits in the working out. Apparently it doesn't matter that they are both on the 'passport benefits' that would entitle ME to some Council Tax Support.

If I had only J living at home, I wouldn't have to pay anything. If M or D had their own place, they would get full Council Tax Support and in my Local Authority would only have to pay £19 a month which is what I was paying when I was on Income Support before I started uni. How can it be right that because they choose to live at home, therefore saving the local authority a couple of hundred pounds a month in Housing Benefit, (and M wouldn't be able to manage on his own anyway) we have to pay four times as much in Council Tax?

If I am a student, should my student loan count towards household income for Council Tax purposes as I am exempt from paying it? If I lived with just J it wouldn't.

agrinnall

I wasn't aware that household income had any impact on determination of Council Tax payment, I thought it was just based on who in the household is eligible to pay. You are exempt, as of course is J. So it sounds like the council believe both M and D are eligible.

Is M doing enough hours at college to qualify for student exemption? Or does the ESA payment come with a CT exemption?

Does D's JSA payment qualify for CT exemption?

If one or other is exempt then you can claim single occupancy discount. If both are exempt then there are no residents eligible to pay CT so there should be nothing to pay.

Does your student union have a welfare officer who could help you resolve this?

StudiousStudent

The Student Union have advised me to go to CAB as they have no one trained in benefits advice.

I really don't know if M or D would be exempt. I think M's college doesn't cover enough hours to make him full time, and he's 22 which I think also has a bearing on it. D's JSA would mean he was eligible to pay the 20% our LA insist benefit claiments pay, as would M's ESA.

I received a 44 page Housing and Council Tax Benefit letter through the post on Saturday. It's slightly confusing as to what is taken into account when they've worked income out to come to their decision. The letter has my full HB and CT account on it for the past two years!