Landlord withholding rent until we have a zero outstanding balance council tax letter

Jslocombe95

Good Evening,
Please advise me on how I can go about getting my deposit back from the Letting Agency, the Landlord of the property is also part owner of the Letting Agency as well.

We have now moved out from the property as of end of June, we have agreed the reduction in our deposit for some small additional cleaning, however now the letting agency will not release the deposit til we have some kind of zero balance council tax letter.
Having spoken to the council, they say there is no account linked with us tenants, and thus no bills were ever sent, and now that we have left the property no bills would be issued.
However the letting agents claims having spoken to the council, they say that apparently the council were made aware at the start of tenancy, and that there is an outstanding account linked with the property.
I have asked the letting agents to instead then provide account details or bill details linked with the account in order for us to look into it however since my request to provide this they have suspiciously stopped responding.
The letting agents also claim they have sent a copy of the tenancy agreement to the council and as such I would assume that this should make the letting agent/landlord not liable to ever have to pay the council tax if they were to be ever billed for this time period anyways.
So am I right in assuming that they are illegally withholding our rent, and if so how can we go about fighting this?
I was planning to send one more email to them before raising a dispute but wanted to confirm details on the forum first in case I'm incorrect.

Many Thanks,
Joe,

D_M_E

Start a claim with whatever scheme your deposit is registered with and give them the same info as the council gave you.

SallyDucati

Did the tenancy agreement state the landlord pays the council tax?

AdrianC

As far as the deposit goes, just go straight to the deposit protection scheme that it's held in.


With the CT, unless the landlord was explicitly liable for paying it from your rent (vanishingly unlikely), you are legally liable for it. The LL is obviously concerned that he may end up with it on his tab - and, if you've never registered, he's probably right to be. Even if/when you get your deposit back, that does not let you off the hook - the council can go after you through the courts, and if they decide to make the LL pay, then once he's paid he can issue a court claim for the debt against you, too. And you will lose if you try to defend the claim.


So just stop mucking about, get in contact with the council and be absolutely open and honest about the situation. Tell them when you moved in, and when you moved out. Get them to issue you the bill you should have paid all along, or put "zero liability" in writing to you.

welshmoneylover

Have you contacted the council and paid the CTax bill?

CIS

Assuming England or Wales;

Having spoken to the council, they say there is no account linked with us tenants, and thus no bills were ever sent, and now that we have left the property no bills would be issued.

This may be an issue - what sort of tenancy was it. Council Tax liability can be updated and backdated if required to correct the situation.

The letting agents also claim they have sent a copy of the tenancy agreement to the council and as such I would assume that this should make the letting agent/landlord not liable to ever have to pay the council tax if they were to be ever billed for this time period anyways.

If legislation does not make the landlord liable then any liability will be placed on to the tenants.

CIS

With the CT, unless the landlord was explicitly liable for paying it from your rent (vanishingly unlikely), you are legally liable for it.

The only way that clause would make a difference for council tax purposes would be to allow the tenants, if they were liable, to chase the landlord for the money. It makes no difference to any decision on council tax liability that the council make.

Cakeguts

How can there be no council tax bills linked to you at the property? When you moved in it was your job to notify the council that you would be paying the council tax at that property. The landlord would also have told the council that they were no longer liable for the council tax. I can't see how you cannot have had any council tax bills?



The fact that the council has said that they won't now send you a bill for that property now that you have moved out doesn't change the fact that you are still liable for that payment.



To sort this out you need to pay the council tax that you owe.

Lolly88

I'm assuming you and the person/people you were living with are students and therefore exempt from council tax? If that is the case, the council should still have provided you with some statement indicating your exemption from paying council tax so you need to sort it with them

CIS

I'm assuming you and the person/people you were living with are students and therefore exempt from council tax? If that is the case, the council should still have provided you with some statement indicating your exemption from paying council tax so you need to sort it with them

That's assuming the council had them as the liable parties, which it appears isn't the case as the OP states the council had no account in their name.

Cakeguts

Jslocombe95 wrote: »

Thanks for all of the responses.
All of the responses stating "just pay the council tax", thank you for the useless answer and not reading my original post, I have contacted the council numerous times, and can't provide any account details with which to pay, upon writing a long post explaining the situation to the council, their only response was to state
In order to access your account and discuss the matter in detail, please respond with:

- Your Council Tax account number OR
- The date, amount and method of your most recent payment OR
- If you pay by direct debit, the last 3 digits of the bank account used to pay the council tax direct debit.

I have spoken to the council numerous times who have been unable to provide me any solution regarding paying the council tax.
The letting agents claim there is an open account but have not responded numerous times when asked for them to provide me the account number so that we can access the account.
We were sent no bills throughout the entire year to any tenants regarding council tax, despite the claims that letting agents provided the new details at the start of the year.

"Just pay the council tax" is not a useful suggestion, believe it or not we thought of that.

I even contacted the council back in March to which nothing was ever followed up by them.

You are working from the assumption that it was someone else's job to tell the council that you were now living in the property.



The letting agent can't set up council tax bill for you. You have to contact the council to do this because the payment is between you and the council. The previous tenants or the person who was paying the council tax can tell the council that they are no longer liable because you have moved in but they can't set up your payment for you. You have to do that.



All the letting agents know is that the council tax for that property has not been paid for the year that you lived there. Now who do you think is going to pay that?



The council are probably confused because they don't realise that you never contacted them to set up the council tax payments when you moved in. You are not going to be able to use the normal council tax methods if you have never paid anything or even set up an account.



Have you been to the council offices with your tenancy agreement and explained that you owe a year's council tax?


The open account that the letting agents have is nothing to do with you as it is not in your name because you didn't set up the account with the council so there is no point in them giving you any information from it as it is not your account.



You can only pay from the account that you have with the council you can't use one belonging to someone else.



The way it stands at the moment is that the letting agents have a bill in someone's name for a year of council tax that you were supposed to pay. True to form you are trying to get someone else to sort out the mess that you have created by expecting someone else to set up your council tax account.



If you want to get your deposit back you have to find a way of paying the council tax. If you can't do this you will lose your deposit so that it can be paid for you. If the deposit doesn't cover the whole council tax you owe expect to be taken to court for the rest.