Council tax from old private let

leethomson18

Hello looking for some advice.

I moved out of a short assured tenancy agreement a month early but still paid the rent for the month we were absent. We have received our deposit back since but the landlord is now claiming we owe them over 300 in council tax despite the fact we kept paying it. The council have told us that the landlord is liable as we were no longer living there.

She was verbally abusive on the phone call where she claimed we owe her money and I'm pretty sure she hasn't paid any income tax on the rent we gave her as she was insistent on it being posted through her letter box.

Any advice is great.

mrschaucer

Who did you keep paying the council tax to? The council?

theartfullodger

Been paying rent in cash no receipt? Sigh! If so, in future, pay by cheque, taking copy ..(how else do you prove you paid?).

SaT? Is this Scotland.

I would ignore landlord, other than noting any harassment. If harassment gets worse report to Police (in writing so they'll have to try v hard to ignore it...)

Informing HMRC of suspected fiddling is easy......
https://www.gov.uk/report-an-unregistered-trader-or-business

( I don't like crooks, whoever they be, landlord, tenant, agent, MP.... Grass 'em up I say!)

leethomson18

Yeah I kept paying to the council through the the same direct debit.

The rent was receipted for every month as we found this to be unusual behaviour so at least we had this as proof.

leethomson18

Also yes it is Scotland, apologies should have said in original post.

leslieknope

if the council have said she's liable then there's not much she can do about it except try to intimidate you into paying. so just ignore her and report her if she won't leave you alone!

maybe get written confirmation from the council if possible?

anselld

If the Council have found you not liable for the final month, have they refunded your over payment? (they cannot collect CT from two people for the same period).

Why is it £300? Surely that is in excess of one months CT.

marliepanda

If you were liable, you'd have a bill. Make sure the council have your forwarding address just in case.

Next tim the landlord pipes up ask for the bill with your name on and the dates of liability. She won't be able to produce it. Chances are you've paid over ten months and been refunded a little and now she's liable for maybe Jan Feb march.

FBaby

This doesn’t make sense. Did you pay the CT for the month you were not living there? If so, why would the LL claim you owe that month and why would the council be involved? It sounds like either you stop the DD so that this month wasn’t paid, or they have refunded it to you and they have invoiced the LL.

Although from a council perspective, they will indeed ascertain that you were not responsible for payment to them any longer if you were not living there, it doesn’t mean that from an ast perspective, you are not responsible for paying compensation to your LL as your lease hadn’t ended (assuming it didn’t hence why you paid rent for that month). Also, is a month CT really £300? Sounds very high!

marliepanda

FBaby wrote: »

This doesn’t make sense. Did you pay the CT for the month you were not living there? If so, why would the LL claim you owe that month and why would the council be involved? It sounds like either you stop the DD so that this month wasn’t paid, or they have refunded it to you and they have invoiced the LL.

Although from a council perspective, they will indeed ascertain that you were not responsible for payment to them any longer if you were not living there, it doesn’t mean that from an ast perspective, you are not responsible for paying compensation to your LL as your lease hadn’t ended (assuming it didn’t hence why you paid rent for that month). Also, is a month CT really £300? Sounds very high!

Councils do still hold the tenant liable until the end of the tenancy. They may however qualify for empty property discounts.

The landlord is only made liable again after the tenancy ends. If there is dispute over dates then they can contact the council and new bills will be issued.

At no point has the OP said that the £300 is a month. Just that they moved out a month early, paid, and now the landlord wants £300.

C.C.L.

marliepanda wrote: »

Councils do still hold the tenant liable until the end of the tenancy. They may however qualify for empty property discounts.

The landlord is only made liable again after the tenancy ends. If there is dispute over dates then they can contact the council and new bills will be issued.

At no point has the OP said that the £300 is a month. Just that they moved out a month early, paid, and now the landlord wants £300.

Not so with our council (Leeds) our tenants notice period ended on 28th May last year, and they found another property that the tenancy started 2nd April. We were billed for April & May and there was nothing we could do about it because our tenants had told them they moved out on 4th April when they didn't. It didn't matter that we had the written notice from the tenants giving the 28th May as the end of tenancy, I argued the point but the council wouldn't budge.