Council Tax question

TheGardener

As I said I can understand a non BR spouse would be liable but this seems really harsh on a teenage dependant. I would suggest you all make an appointment to discuss this with the benefits team at the council - you may get a sympathetic hearing and there is no two ways about this - you all need to start talking to the council asap.
Obviously you are going to have make savings within your budget to help her - after all, you will be paying again from 1st April 17.
Perhaps her 'officially' moving out now until the spring will reduce the future bill and make it easier to manage the previous bills.

Kim_13

Indeed.

It doesn't even make sense that they include the full amount in the BR only for the council to then be able to chase somebody else for the full amount. The point of a BR is that things get wiped. It is not the OP's fault that her parent is BR and yet the council want to punish her for it. Council might argue that she chooses to 'live' in two places, but many young people don't even realise that they can be chased for CT without being on deeds/a tenancy. If the OP's daughter was aware then perhaps she wouldn't have chosen to do so.

There is a hierarchy but it is twisted to suit them; person highest is BR, no partner at same level, so chase daughter. A resident is higher up than a landlord, yet they don't turn round expecting the landlord to cough up because the student resident doesn't have to pay. It seems they stop in that case because the student is exempt, disregarded or BR isn't good enough so down the list they go.

Reading this site, it gets worse. It seems that daughter won't get the 25% discount as BR is not one of the disregarded categories: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/tax/council-tax/council-tax/ .

Seems like a situation that a discretionary reduction would be appropriate, but of course we may be more reasonable than the council: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-income/help-with-your-council-tax-council-tax-reduction/council-tax-reduction-making-an-application/council-tax-reduction-who-can-apply/ . At the very least she should get a low income/capital reduction; the bill wasn't hers until her parent couldn't be forced to pay it, so she couldn't have applied for the reductions any earlier.

Of course this doesn't stop you/boyfriend/any other relatives deciding to effectively pay part of the bill instead of her; they don't actually care who pays the bill as long as the money is extracted from somewhere, but will chase her only with enforcement action if no one does.

unforeseen

Kim_13 wrote: »

If the OP is not liable to pay council tax this year due to BR, shouldn't the OP's daughter be able to get the single person discount, as she is the only person liable to pay?

Daughter would have to officially move in with boyfriend and his parents to not be liable for the council tax, but that would be from the date she moved out and she would still owe the arrears for the time she was a resident (even if only part time.)

A friend does similar to the OP's daughter and her mother ends up with the full bill (widowed a few years ago.) She isn't eligible for the discount because my friend is sometimes there and while not named on the house deeds, is eligible for council tax purposes.

CT is quite unfair in situations such as this. Even with the discount, a single person has to pay 75%, while a council tax bill is based on 2 adults.

No, daughter is liable for the full amount. There are no discounts for having a bankruptee in the house.

The following people are not counted when working out your council tax:- people currently in prison, in detention or sectioned under the Mental Health Act

• people who are severely mentally impaired
• 18 year olds for whom child benefit is payable
• students, student nurses, Youth Training Scheme (YTS) and apprentices; school leavers starting a course of education in the next term
• patients living in long term residential care homes or hospital
• some residential care workers receiving less than £36 per week
• residents of hostels for the homeless or night shelters (if not self-contained accommodation)
• members and dependants of international defence organisations
• members of religious communities
• some people who provide care to another person (other than spouse, partner or child under 18)
• non British spouses of students
• persons with diplomatic privileges or immunities

That's Tameside but everybody else seems to have the same list

debt_doctor

Hi,
I have never seen that happen before!
Liability 'passing over' to a current partner living at the same address is common place if only one partner becomes bankrupt - but never seen things go further down the Hierarchy chain.
However, thinking of the legislation, this seems perfectly possible.


It must be that our local authority has a policy not to pass down beyond the partner, otherwise we would have seen this happen.
DD

Lostmyway

I'll call them tmrw. I can't see my daughter saddled with this debt. She's just starting out and shouldn't have to pay for my mistakes. I'll have to sort it, although as a bankrupt it's going to be tricky .....

NotEvanAPot

Be aware that your daughter will need to be the one handling this now - if you approach your local authority and attempt to pay, they are within their rights to contact the OR and open up an investigation in to how you can pay this debt now, yet included it in your bankruptcy. That is a can of worms you probably want to leave well alone.

If your daughter doesn't yet know of this situation, I urge you to be open with her. It can and will quickly escalate.

Kim_13

The council will only deal with the person named on the account without written permission to do otherwise. If you have any contact with them you'd need to ensure you don't give the game away so to speak, just in case. As she is liable an accepted payment arrangement will be based on what they think she can afford, so you might have to agree with your daughter to pay her back at a rate affordable to you, while she'll be temporarily out of pocket.

Worth your daughter coming across distressed that she is saddled with this debt, pointing out the high % of her pay that they are asking for; doesn't want to go bankrupt herself, contributes x to the house she stays at. Might help the case for some discretion and/or lead to her claim for a reduction (she'll need to know how much she has in savings if any as that reduction is means tested.)

Whatever she can get it reduced by is all the better. You can then transfer money to her as you can so that things don't get difficult in your situation. She can pay via her own account and no one will be any the wiser. I have known non-liable people that paid but then they weren't BR so if anything came back from it, the person in trouble would have been the liable person for pestering them into coughing up.

Good on you though for not going down the route that so many do on those bayliff shows (i.e. it's legally your debt so you deal with it.) While it's bound to be distressing for your daughter, the knowledge that you'll do everything you can will be a weight off of her shoulders.

This is one of the ways the system fails to do what it's intended to. Liability for a property you don't stay in is supposed to help with the housing shortage by deterring multiple homes, but a 19 year old is hardly property hogging! Many 19 year olds coming and going in this way will make no difference to a CT bill since there are often two other liable adults in the property to warrant an undiscounted bill.

Forgot to mention earlier as regards to her status. If she left education during the 2015/16 tax year, then she might be able to get some of the arrears removed. If they say it's too late, she can argue that she couldn't have appealed any earlier. Council Tax is accrued at a daily rate.

CIS

Council tax liability cannot pass downwards - if there was another person jointly liable then they could be pursued for the balance. The OP is the sole tenant and so solely liable for the council tax.

A person who is resident in the property and has a lower interest in the 'hierarchy of liability' cannot be made liable by virtue of someone with a higher interest become bankrupt etc.

NotEvanAPot

CIS wrote: »

Council tax liability cannot pass downwards - if there was another person jointly liable then they could be pursued for the balance. The OP is the sole tenant and so solely liable for the council tax.

A person who is resident in the property and has a lower interest in the 'hierarchy of liability' cannot be made liable by virtue of someone with a higher interest become bankrupt etc.

But the OP is not the sole tenant, regardless of the tenancy agreement. This can be proven by the local authority using the electoral register.

unforeseen

CIS wrote: »

Council tax liability cannot pass downwards - if there was another person jointly liable then they could be pursued for the balance. The OP is the sole tenant and so solely liable for the council tax.

A person who is resident in the property and has a lower interest in the 'hierarchy of liability' cannot be made liable by virtue of someone with a higher interest become bankrupt etc.

Councils are free to go down the hierarchy of liability until they can find somebody within it that they can get the payment from. That is the whole idea of it. Bankruptcy at the top of the chain does not stop it