Responsibility for paying Council Tax

The Council Tax bill is sent to the person who appears first on this list of categories:

• a property owner (freehold), who lives there
• a property owner (leasehold), who lives there
• a tenant
• a licensee who lives there (for example a pub landlord)
• a resident (this can include a squatter)
• the property owner, if nobody lives in the property

Joint responsibility

'Joint and several liability' is when more than one person is responsible for paying the Council Tax at a property. (For example, if there is more than one owner or more than one tenant living in the property, or if the owner or tenant has a partner.) All liable people will be named on the Council Tax bill.

People with joint liability are responsible for paying the whole of the Council Tax bill, not just a share of it. If you pay your 'share' but the other person does not pay their 'share', we can recover the arrears from you, not only from the other person.

Any arrangement about who pays what percentage of the Council Tax bill is between the liable people. It is not our responsibility to decide how much each person should pay.

People who qualify for student or severely mentally impaired status are excluded from this joint and several liability rule.

Owner responsibility

Sometimes the owner is responsible for paying the Council Tax bill, even if they do not live in the property. Examples of this are:

• residential care homes
• nursing homes
• mental nursing homes
• hostels
• a property occupied by a religious community
• houses in multiple occupation (HMOs)
• a property where the owner does not normally live, but the occupier(s) is employed by them as domestic staff
• a property occupied by a minister of religion where they perform the duties of their office
• a property provided to an asylum seeker(s) under Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

Tenant responsibility

If the whole of the property is rented to one person, a family, or joint tenants, it is the tenant(s)' responsibility to pay the Council Tax. We send the bill direct to them.

Landlord responsibility

If the property is rented to several people and they each have an individual tenancy agreement to occupy only part of the building, the property is a 'house in multiple occupation' (HMO). The landlord is responsible for paying the Council Tax.

For Council Tax purposes, a house in multiple occupation (HMO) is:

• a property that was built or has been adapted for tenants or licensees to live in, who are not living as a single household,
  
  or
• a property lived in by a person or persons, each has a tenancy or licence to live in only part of the property or pay rent or a fee for only part of the property