Liability for Council Tax if landlord retains garage

BeachNut

If a single house is rented to a 2 tenants (joint & severable) but the landlord excludes the stand-alone garage as part of the tenancy agreement (with rent reduced accordingly), is the LANDLORD liable for the council tax (even if the tenancy agreement says the Tenant is liable) ? I'm wondering if this varies by local council.

eg. Readings website seems to indicate the Landlord would be liable. Other council websites aren't so specific.

Thanks.

Guest101

Councils don't like to get involved with this, from experience.

jjlandlord

This is a moot point: Your tenancy agreement states that you are liable. Therefore, you are liable to the landlord in any case, even if he turns out to be liable to the council.

theartfullodger

Is the aforesaid garage part of the same land registry entries, or is it a separate property? (Yes that can happen, I gave such)

Guest101

jjlandlord wrote: »

This is a moot point: Your tenancy agreement states that you are liable. Therefore, you are liable to the landlord in any case, even if he turns out to be liable to the council.

Better to be liable to the LL than the council to be fair. CT debt is still one of the very few, if not only, debts for which you can be imprisoned

CIS

BeachNut wrote: »

If a single house is rented to a 2 tenants (joint & severable) but the landlord excludes the stand-alone garage as part of the tenancy agreement (with rent reduced accordingly), is the LANDLORD liable for the council tax (even if the tenancy agreement says the Tenant is liable) ? I'm wondering if this varies by local council.

eg. Readings website seems to indicate the Landlord would be liable. Other council websites aren't so specific.

Thanks.

You retain the tenancy on the dwelling therefore you will be responsible for the council tax unless the property is a HMO.

sinizterguy

I see absolutely no reason why you wouldn't be liable for the CT even if LL keeps the garage.

You could negotiate that a proportion be paid by LL, via rent reduction .... But there is no requirement for LL to agree to that.

theartfullodger

Tenant is only liable for CT if property in it's entirety is under exclusive control of tenant: So if garage excluded landlord responsible, council are right I think.


See
http://www.pims.co.uk/tenant-payment-of-Council
- but I can't work out which law says so (yet..)

sinizterguy

theartfullodger wrote: »

Tenant is only liable for CT if property in it's entirety is under exclusive control of tenant: So if garage excluded landlord responsible, council are right I think.


See
http://www.pims.co.uk/tenant-payment-of-Council
- but I can't work out which law says so (yet..)

So, the contract says tenant is liable. So tenant has agreed to pay it to the LL. LL can then be liable and pay it to the council.

Makes no real difference at the end of the day.

thesaint

jjlandlord wrote: »

This is a moot point: Your tenancy agreement states that you are liable. Therefore, you are liable to the landlord in any case, even if he turns out to be liable to the council.

I read it as the OP is the landlord.

CIS

sinizterguy wrote: »

So, the contract says tenant is liable. So tenant has agreed to pay it to the LL. LL can then be liable and pay it to the council.

Makes no real difference at the end of the day.

Not really - the council tax liability is determined in legislation, you cannot override this by trying to make another person liable in the wording of the tenancy. If the tenant uses the L/L as a go between and the L/L doesn't pass any money on then the tenant would still be responsible for paying the council.