Who should pay the council tax?

[Cavapoo123]

A couple are moving in together. Person A is moving into Person B’s house.

Person A works full-time, currently pays £1500 in house bills in their own place (rented), will only be paying around £700 once moving into Person B’s house (also rented). Person B has no children. Earns around £2000 per month after tax.

Person B doesn’t work due to ill health, is on disability benefits, also has a disabled child who receives disability benefits. Also receives £120 per month child maintenance. Person B’s benefits will go down by around £800 once Person A moves in, but will be making up some of the money by saving on some of the joint house bills that Person A will be contributing towards.

Person B currently doesn’t have to pay council tax due to disability exemptions, however once Person A moves in, the house will have to pay council tax again which even with the single person discount will be around £190 per month.

Who is responsible for this council tax bill?

If I were person B, I'd not move person A in unless the other person contributed more to the cost of the house. £750 is quite low, esp around SE England.

Sounds like this isn't going to work. In any case if person A is responsibke for the council tax they need to pay it all. Why should either person be out of pocket.

The only 100% disability exemption for CT is severe mental impairment. And the OP says this is not the case.
Can get a reduction if have extra rooms or bathrooms due to disability which puts the CT into a higher band

Should be shared as should all bills.

How much do you get in total @Cavapoo123 why did you leave that information out?

If person B is moving in as a lodger separate food bills et cetera would be okay if person B is moving in to be part of a family all household bills need to be shared
if person B is moving in to be part of a couple that won’t work as a child is not an independent personI would suggest all income from whatever source into one joint account ends monthly direct debits to each of you for personal expenses say £300 each.

Each person should gain or lose the same amount of money compared to their prior situation. It sounds like B will be losing a total of 1000 (800 in benefits that B will no longer receive, and 200 in council tax that B now has to pay) whereas A will be gaining 800. That's not fair to B. Actually B will lose more than A will gain so to me it sounds like this move is unaffordable.

The reason the council tax is different is because they previously weren’t paying it.

So agreeing to split existing bills I suppose is easy enough to agree on - but the council tax is a ‘new’ bill.

I think @Cavapoo123 needs to be more transparent on what her income is for this to be accurately assessed as such.

How much will person B be receiving in all benefits after the £800 reduction - including the child maintenance payments too?

Even though person B will have their income reduced if they are receiving more/the same/similar to what person A is earning I would just split the cost between the two.

The council tax should be included in the bills that are going to be split 50/50.

The person moving in without children would still be subsidising the child, even though the parent refuses to see that.

Person A and person B are not financially compatible.

It doesn't matter that it's a new bill, all the household bills go into the same mix. I think it would be reasonable for person A to be paying more into a joint bills account but I can't advise what that split should be without knowing what person B's total income is (regardless of whether it's from benefits or not).

The £2k I assume is uc - lwcra - pip and maybe dla

While b may be losing out on benefits they will be getting help round the house, cooking, cleaning, Gelo with the child etc. Also agree that how much B is getting in benefits is important here…..

I agree it should be split evenly, I’m just explaining why exactly the issue has probably occurred and focuses on this bill rather than the rest.

This

Just do a before/after spreadsheet with all outgoings (income, benefits, bills, housing costs, council tax, transport costs, etc etc). And then you can adjust so that it is fair to both of you.
Surly you will both be saving on housing costs, and this savings should compensate the increased CT (having to pay it for you / losing the single person discount for your OH). You will lose some benefits but you’ll have someone paying half of the rent/bills even though it also covers your child.
Basically, you don’t want one person to be worse off and no change for the other one. Or one person to be better off but not the other.

You never answered me about how much B brings in prior to and after the move?

Have you discussed deposit too? I assume you have a deposit when you initially moved in. Does B have half of this for you too?

What are your monthly bills now and your income? Like I said before, if you will be out of pocket, don't do it.

Combine all costs and bills, then divide in proportion to income. If there is already difficulty over who pays what, don’t live together.

Are you seriously going to pay a man several hundred pounds a month to live with you and your child? That's what this amounts to, OP. You'll lose £800 at least every month because you're living with a man - AnyFucker's gold-plated cock remarks come to mind!

Seriously though why would you do that? Keep your independence. It's highly unlikely your child's life will improve if you live with another man now. If it goes belly up you may well be the one who has to find somewhere suitable to live as he'd be on your tenancy. Why would you make yourself so vulnerable?

Generous!! Have you ever lived on benefits?

I once had a similar dilemma as a F/T student. Was technically exempt from paying CT. But I moved into a houseshare where some others were working, and they had to pay full amount. Their contributions would have gone up if I'd not paid my share. So I paid.

Agree that in OP's situation, before there are any moves, the people involved should make a spreadsheet of ALL household expenses and income and work out the respective contributions or there will be resentment down the line.

Well 2K a month from benefits is quite generous wouldn’t you say?

The OP said that A earned £2k not B