100% Second Home Surcharge Council Tax

kmz_12

Hello - I own a property jointly with my father which we live in with the rest of our family. We both do not own any other property. For some reason I received my council tax with a 100% second property surcharge which I believe is incorrect. Can someone help with this, I believe this is an incorrect charge, or is there something else that I should be considering. From my research it doesn't seem like I should have been charged this. My local council has been emailed, called and chased a few times over the last two weeks but I have not received a response.

pothole70

if you don’t own a second property the you should not be paying the 100% increase.

p00hsticks

Presumably this is the only council tax bill you've received ?
As an aside, why is the bill addressed to just you and not you and your father if you both own and live in the property ? 

pothole70 said:

if you don’t own a second property the you should not be paying the 100% increase.

It's not necessarily about owning two properties, it's who is responsible for the council tax on those properties.
In some cases people might own one property and rent another, and so are liable for two council tax charges, one at the second home rate as only one will be their main residence.

kmz_12

Yes, this is the only Council Tax bill I have received. 
The bill is addressed to the both of us.
As previously mentioned, we live in the property, do not rent elsewhere and do not own any other property. We live in this property and have lived here for many years.

Tabieth

If you haven’t had a response from the LA, I’d recommend contacting your local Councillor. They’ll contact the relevant department / officer and ask for an answer on your behalf. That’s always a very good way of speeding up a response from a LA. Officers hate it when Councillors get involved and so will likely get back to you quickly. 

newsgroupmonkey_

p00hsticks said:

Presumably this is the only council tax bill you've received ?
As an aside, why is the bill addressed to just you and not you and your father if you both own and live in the property ?

Up until fairly recently, my wife was never mentioned on our CT bill.
We only added her, because she was struggling to get ID (she wasn't on any of the household bills, and she was asked to provide proof of who she was)

Most of the bills we get come via email now and we have a joint email we use for this purpose.

DE_612183

which council is it?

could you have accidentally "ticked" a box on a form?

theartfullodger

Where does / did dad live during all this??  Not clear if in property in question or elsewhere. Understand you live/lived there...

kmz_12

He has always lived at this address @theartfullodger