council tax for students

[crossing]

my son is a student in a shared house .One student has left his course but is still having to pay rent in the house. The students remaining in the house have just had a council tax bill as apparently if one person in the house is not a student they are all now liable for coucil tax. Is the right ?is there any way round it?

[bednobs]

the person who has left his course is liable for the council tax bill. He should get a single person discount

[crossing]

Thank you , his local authority are being very unhelpful and just insisting they all have to pay

[Buenchico]

(2-part post):

The landlord of 'multiple occupation' properties is legally responsible for paying the Council Tax, rather than individual tenants. However, he's entitled to pass the bill on.

Council tax is payable in full on a property where there are two or more 'qualifying adults' resident at the address. Where only one qualifying adult lives at the address, a 25% reduction is applied. Full-time students do not count as 'qualifying adults', so the bill will now have increased from zero to 75% of the full amount. The landlord must pay this but he can demand that the tenants refund the money to him.

The exact way that the bill should be split among the tenants should be defined by the agreement which exists between each of them, and the agreement which exists between them and the landlord. Regrettably, the arrangements in relation to shared property are frequently not written down in a formal contract. However, if one member of the group is responsible for collecting the rent from everyone, and forwarding it to the landlord, it's likely that the same person will be legally responsible for ensuring that the Council Tax is paid to the landlord.

[Buenchico]

How the group decide who should pay what is, in the absence of any written agreement, solely a matter for them to agree among themselves. At first glance it might seem that only the single qualifying adult should pay the full amount. However, that would leave him paying (75% of) the Council Tax on, say, a Band D property when he's only occupying the equivalent of a Band A property (with the students occupying the rest). So there's no ideal solution.

It might be possible for the qualifying adult and/or the students to apply for Council Tax Benefit. This is payable when someone is unemployed or otherwise on a low income. However, I'm not sure whether it's payable to people who receive their Council Tax bill indirectly (i.e. via their landlord). The benefits staff at their local council offices should be able to advise them.

Chris

[bednobs]

i am shocked chris!

[buildersmate]

No, Chris is absolutely right. It happened to my son in a shared student house when one of the others dropped off the course.
You can be sure that I asserted PDQ that the non-student was going to be paying all the assessed CT, if he was insisting on pulling off the course.

[themas]

What Chris says is right for a HMO. But sometimes the tenants have an assured shorthold tenancy (i.e. all of them are on the tenancy). If that is the case, then the tenants are liable for the Council Tax and not the landlord (unless the tenancy agreement specifically excludes this liability). However, the problem of who pays still remains.

[Ruth541]

I had the same problem about 10 yrs ago when I left University. One of the tenants in my shared house wasn't studying and we had a verbal agreement with her that she would be responsible for the council tax (we wouldn't have let a non-student live with us otherwise). At the end of the year a letter came through saying she hadn't payed it, and when we talked to her about it she refused to pay. It ended up with us receiving letters from the council basically stating pay up or we'll take you to court. I wasn't willing to chance it so I sent a cheque for one quarter of the bill (there were 4 of us in the house) with a covering letter explaining the situation. I don't know if the other tenants payed their shares as we quickly lost touch, but I didn't get any more letters from the council about it.
But my understanding at the time was that it was legally the responsibility of all of the tenants, or at least that's what was implied in the letter from the council.

[themas]

Yes it is - and they can make any one of the tenants pay the whole lot!

So either all the others did pay up or you were lucky not to be chased.