Question

Council Tax (England) | Tenant Obligations (England)

Tenants claiming void council tax relief

16 Apr 2016 | 2 comments

When my tenants give notice and leave at the end of the month, I find that I don’t have the void council tax relief for the following month because the tenant has wrongly claimed it during the last month of occupation even though there is a clause in the tenancy agreement the council say they are entitled to do it and it is illegal to hold it from deposit. The tenants are all at it now. Unsure of where I stand. Any suggestions? Thank you.

Answer

2 Comments

  1. guildy

    It is correct that the discount / exemption is against the property not the person meaning the tenant can use it during their period.

    However, the discount or exemption only applies when it was actually unoccupied. If you can show that in fact it was occupied by them then it won’t apply and you can appeal the decision. For example, you may have inspected or shown prospective tenants round during the last month so could show they were in fact in occupation.

    We have done this before and successfully appealed and the tenants remained liable to pay until the actually truly left.

  2. JungleProperty

    We have always found that sending a letter as per the ‘appeal the decision’ link above together with a copy of the TA works. In our council district it is not just ‘unoccupied’ but it must also be unfurnished and our local council do send out inspectors to check this (we had a client with an unoccupied property who was told to remove furniture to qualify). Good luck

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