TV licence

alanj4552

We have a holiday cottage next to our main residence. Do we need another TV licence for the cotttage as well as main house? I saw some information that it was not required if on same site. The actual words were ' may not be required ', so that was clear.

Mickey666

I doubt that YOU need a tv licence if you’re not occupying the cottage and not watching live tv there yourself.  The people renting the cottage might require a TV licence though.

pphillips

There is an exception if you only ever use devices powered solely by their own internal batteries – in which case your main home’s TV Licence will cover you.

Mickey666

Yes, that's another old regulation that was essentially useless in practice because there were very few TV sets that were capably of operating "solely from internal batteries".  Many moons ago we had a 'portable' b&w TV that could operate from a 12v battery so was useful for caravans etc, but it still had to be plugged into the car electrics and therefore didn't qualify for that exception - as very few did.  of course, with the advent of smartphones, tablets and laptops, that exception has come back to bite the TV licencing people and we now have the ridiculous situation that you can take your phone/table/laptop on holiday to watch TV and be covered by your main home TV licence quite legally, but as soon as you plug in the mains charger you suddenly need a separate licence.

The whole TV Licencing/BBC funding issue really is long overdue for change.