Council tax dilemma

studentsaver95

Apologises if this is in the wrong place

Basically my partner and I both finish university courses in May but then both become students again on NEW courses in September.

This we ve discovered makes us liable to pay council tax solely for 3 months.We are both unemployed but I have 16k in inheritance savings in a fixed isa which although I have to pay fees to access, according to the council means we have to pay the full amount of council tax without reduction whatsoever

However, I m wondering will this mean 3 equal monthly payments if we ve proof that we start our courses in september? Rather than paying a 1/10 of a years council tax as is standard. As I dont want to be overpaying when we wont be liable come sepetember anyway.

This is my first time ever paying council tax so have no idea with things like this.

CIS

You will have a charge for the council tax charge from June 15 to September 15 - 3 months or so - once your student exemptions has been applied. In the meantime though they would stop your exemption in June 15 and you would be billed for the remainder of the year from June 15 to March 16

Your payments will be spread over the remaining full months in year up to and including Jan 16 - unless you specifically request the instalments be spread until March 16. The sooner they can issue a revised bill, the more instalments you will get.

Once they get proof that you will be back to receiving a student exemption they will re-calculate the council tax charge for the actual period you were not a student and issue another notice to finalise any amount still due (or any credit if you've overpaid).

agrinnall

There are two ways it could go.

The council could accept that you'll only be liable for 3 months and charge you 25% of the full year's bill, and may well let you to pay that in 3 equal instalments.

Or they may ignore your intention to return to university and start to charge you for the next 10 months, which they may do in 10 instalments, or 8 instalments with no payments due in February and March. Then when you tell them you are no longer liable they will stop the payments, and if it's been 1/8th payments you'll have overpaid and will be due a refund.

Edit: Cross posted with CIS, luckily for me I think I've said much the same thing!

Bigphil1474

Full time students are 'disregarded' for CT purposes. They should stop disregarding you for CT purposes from June 2015, so you would get a bill for the last 9 months of the year. They would then re-apply the disregard when you become full time students again. Assuming it's just the 2 of you in the property, as said previously, you'd end up paying CT for 3 months. Where I live you can pay over 10 or 12 instalments (or in full), so the cheapest way would be to agree to pay the remained in 9 instalments, which would end after 3. If they are helpful, and you have docs. to support that you will be going back into full time education, they may agree to just bill you for the 3 months and pay to an agreed plan, over 3,6, 9 months etc. As CT benefit is means tested, unless you are a pensioner, the over £16k capitol usually rules out any reduction, but it may be worth checking if it applies to both of you, or just to you if the capitol is yours not your partners.

bevanuk

Can you not get a job for those 3 months and just pay it?

agrinnall

bevanuk wrote: »

Can you not get a job for those 3 months and just pay it?

The OP isn't trying to get out of paying it, just doesn't want to pay more than necessary, which as I explained in post #3 could happen.

specialboy

You can pay council tax over 12 months now

System

As it must be paid within the council tax year then the OP will only be able to pay it over a max of 9 months as liability only starts in June which is when the bill will be produced.

getmore4less

One of you should move home so you get the single persons discount.