Council Tax discount (carer)

superM

Hi, 

I live in Birmingham.  My mother in law lives with us. She Is in receipt of high rate attendance allowance. 

I work full time and get carer element for her on Universal Credit. 

Is it possible I can get a discount on my Council Tax bill. https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20144/apply_for_a_council_tax_discount_or_exemption/3035/apply_for_a_carer_council_tax_discount

And can it be backdated? 

Thanks 

FlorayG

You could try, but you're going to be hard pressed to convince them you provide full-time care when you also have a full-time job. Does your mother require to have someone there all the time while you are out at work? If not, I think your chances are close to zero

superM

FlorayG said:

You could try, but you're going to be hard pressed to convince them you provide full-time care when you also have a full-time job. Does your mother require to have someone there all the time while you are out at work? If not, I think your chances are close to zero

Yes my wife  stays with her during daytime. Whenever she goes out she ask a friend or neighbour to be at home with her.  She has dementia, mental health problems and walking difficulties.

They say 35 hours a week.  From 5pm to 10pm over 7 days works out 40 hours. More than what is required.. 

KenAdams2015

If your MIL has dementia she can be disregarded as SMI (severe mental impairment) you and you and your wife can be her carers as you provide 35+ hrs a week (each) of care.

This will mean a 50% reduction in your bill.

ask you council to send you a SMI form and 2 carers disregard forms.

as long as there are no more than 3 adults over 18 (unless any others adults are full time students)

Your MIL has to be in receipt of PiP or Attendance allowance.  Yes can he backdated to the earliest date she is in receipt of AA/Pip and the date the dr signs the form stating she has SMI

superM

Hello, 

I applied for 2x carer and severe mental impairment.  I submitted the details on the council website in June.  I haven’t heard anything.  

Yesterday I sent a message chasing up a response and received the following reply: 

We have received a severely mentally impaired reduction application for xxxx.

 

 

From the application form, we can see that there are 3 adults living in property.

 

 

- xxxx

- xxxx

- xxxx

 

This means you are not eligible for a reduction as there are 2 adults who are liable for council tax.


I my email to them I clearly said there is 2x carer application too.  

I will be replying back to them but just confirming as there are 2 carers for 1 person will that be okay? 

My wife is in receipt for CA but that’s for my child.  

Thanks 

superM

If anyone please can you advise.  Thank you 

toomuchinfo

Yes, 2 carers for one person is acceptable for carer discount, although I am in Wales. We got it as carers for son who is SMI.

Blancmang25

superM said:

If anyone please can you advise.  Thank you 

The qualifying requirement for carers discount is: you provide care for 35 hours or more a week.

You do not need to be in receipt of Carers Allowance.

The SMI person needs to have a qualifying benefit though: i.e PIP Care, DLA Care middle rate or more, etc.

So yes one person who is SMI can have two carers.

superM

I had a telephone call from Council Tax dept. 

They said only 1 person can be disregarded for council tax purposes even 2 people are looking after the person.  

I looked at council website but I cannot find anything.  Searching around  I am getting mixed replies.  

I have searched on ChatGPT and it says: 

Official guidance references

• The UK government’s official page on council tax discounts and exemptions notes:
  “Where two or more carers are living with the person needing care, only one carer can be disregarded.”
• Local councils may interpret or apply rules slightly differently, but this is the standard interpretation.

however carers UK shows an example which matches with mine. 

Is there any sold guidance which states eligibility before I can go back to the council.  At the moment I emailed the AA letter and UC award showing the carer element.   

Thank you and much appreciated 

Blancmang25

superM said:

I had a telephone call from Council Tax dept. 

They said only 1 person can be disregarded for council tax purposes even 2 people are looking after the person.  

I looked at council website but I cannot find anything.  Searching around  I am getting mixed replies.  

I have searched on ChatGPT and it says: 

Official guidance references

• The UK government’s official page on council tax discounts and exemptions notes:
  “Where two or more carers are living with the person needing care, only one carer can be disregarded.”
• Local councils may interpret or apply rules slightly differently, but this is the standard interpretation.

however carers UK shows an example which matches with mine. 

Is there any sold guidance which states eligibility before I can go back to the council.  At the moment I emailed the AA letter and UC award showing the carer element.   

Thank you and much appreciated 

Yes, you can have 2 carers for one person.
The Carers UK website is correct.

Send the example you have shown here to the council tax department and ask them to review their decision.

The legislation does not state one person, only that you need to provide 35 hours of care a week. This is 24/7 - 7 days a week no times are given.
This is providing you are not a disqualified person in the household.
Here is a link to the legislation:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/552/schedule/part/II/made

The link below is from Gov.UK website read further down regarding severely mentally impaired.

https://www.gov.uk/council-tax/discounts-for-disabled-people

As I said previously you do not need to be in receipt of carers allowance or the carers element on UC. So you do not need to send them this.
The requirement is 35 hours of care.

Spoonie_Turtle

(for future reference, ChatGPT is not a search engine, it's a large language model designed to return responses that sound natural, there's no accounting for accuracy.  Far better just to do a Google search as normal and go straight to reliable sources.)