COUNCIL tax - changing to single occupancy

markyyyyyy

myself and my ex wife have separated and have a joint mortgage. our house is near completion, and i am due to move out in (hopefully) 3 weeks.
My ex wife moved into rental accomodation earlier this week.
At what point can i claim single occupancy? Will it automatically be transferred over to my new house? At current, the council still believe two of us live in our current (jointly mortgaged) house
How do i go about changing to single occupancy?
thanks

kuratowski

You need to contact your local council and apply for the single person discount (usually a print out form to return by post, I think some councils can do it online, but no means all).  You will have to give the date your ex moved out and also the address where she has moved to.  They will pro rata the discount, so you won't get a lot for 2019-20 but you should get the full 25% off for 2020-21.

When you move out yourself you will have to repeat the process, there is no automatic carry over of the discount to a new address (at least, not for my council).

nepomuk

As above but with 2 additions. A physical form or sending documents should not be required and councils can process this over the phone if you are not set up to use the council's site.  Obviously during these times calling is not recommended. Secondly, this council tax reduction is not viewed as a traditional tax subsidy when it comes to self assessment or other questionnaires such as universal income.