Council tax - Student exemption - summer holidays

Miri_J

I've been claiming a single person discount for a couple of years. I have two student 'children' at university. When I first started claiming, the youngest was between A'levels and university.

Recently, due to some irregularities with the paperwork, the council removed my single person discount for the whole period and demanded the whole lot back in one lump, causing massive stress for me. I've managed to sort most of it out.

However, they are now claiming that, for the summer holidays, between A'levels and university, my youngest was not a full time student, therefore there were 2 qualifying adults in the house and I should be paying full council tax for that period.

Does anyone have any concrete evidence to say this isn't the case?
It does seem ridiculous. They are hardly going to go and adjust everyone's council tax for each summer holiday. But this is specifically between courses. It does make a significant difference and money is really tight. 

lincroft1710

Miri_J said:

I've been claiming a single person discount for a couple of years. I have two student 'children' at university. When I first started claiming, the youngest was between A'levels and university.

Recently, due to some irregularities with the paperwork, the council removed my single person discount for the whole period and demanded the whole lot back in one lump, causing massive stress for me. I've managed to sort most of it out.

However, they are now claiming that, for the summer holidays, between A'levels and university, my youngest was not a full time student, therefore there were 2 qualifying adults in the house and I should be paying full council tax for that period.

Does anyone have any concrete evidence to say this isn't the case?
It does seem ridiculous. They are hardly going to go and adjust everyone's council tax for each summer holiday. But this is specifically between courses. It does make a significant difference and money is really tight. 

1. This would only apply where there is only one adult (other than the adult "child")

2. It would only apply for the time between end of school and start of uni, subsequent summer holidays would occur during the duration of the uni course.


There was a thread on here some months ago about this very topic but cannot remember the outcome.   

harpee

School leavers aged under 20 are disregarded, see https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/552/paragraph/1n3/made - this is intended to cover the gap between being disregarded while in education and becoming a disregarded full time student (though it applies even if they don't go on to be a student, they're still disregarded until November)

Miri_J

harpee said:

School leavers aged under 20 are disregarded, see https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/552/paragraph/1n3/made - this is intended to cover the gap between being disregarded while in education and becoming a disregarded full time student (though it applies even if they don't go on to be a student, they're still disregarded until November)

Thank you, that's really helpful. Just what I was looking for!