Question

Council Tax (Wales)

council tax

23 May 2016 | 2 comments

Tenants of mine have moved out of a flat but are still within their notice period and still have keys to the flat.
However they have contacted the local council tax department/ water/ electric and transferred themselves out. Where do I stand legally on this?

Michael

Answer

2 Comments

  1. guildy

    Your main concern is the council tax.

    As long as you are using our latest tenancy agreement (from about 2013 when main changes were made) the tenant will remain liable for the period up to the end of the notice because they continue to have a material interest.

    However, the problem is that they will be entitled to use any exemption for an empty property because that goes with the property not the person. There is nothing that can be done about that.

    In respect of other utilities, they will have a similar effect in that you are only liable from when the tenancy is actually at end (when the tenants notice expires). As presumably nothing will be used, this shouldn’t matter a great deal.

  2. JungleProperty

    I would wait until the notice period has expired and keys returned and photograph and datestamp photographs of the meters on the last day of the tenancy and then contact each of the organisations concerned via telephone and give them the meter readings, last day of tenancy and forwarding address etc. If any of the organisations challenges what you tell them offer to e-mail/post copies of photographs and tenancy agreement. We have a template we use to write to the Council Tax Office which I think may have originated from the Guild?

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