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?

Guessing rent 800/1000 and remanded bill

council tax and gas and e for me are over £300 a month

add in water WiFi phone tv license etc soon adds up

Legally the homeowner

In terms of calculating the relative incomes of A and B for the purpose of deciding who pays what proportion of shared bill, non-means tested disability benefits (PIP and DLA) and child maintenance should be excluded. Disability benefits should be available to pay for additional costs relating to disability and child maintenance should account for the additional costs of caring for the child. The only ‘income’ that B has is UC which will be means-tested according to the income of A as a joint claim.

It may be practical to add CM to UC as income available to B to meet general household needs for themselves and their child. Then all household bills including CT are split according to the division of income between A and B. It would only be 50:50 if both A and B had the same income once disability benefits were excluded. What is the combined UC (joint claim) and CM income per month?

A would likely end up paying a greater proportion of joint expenses which would compensate for B’s loss of benefit rather than saving money due to absorbing disability benefits into general housing cost. This is fair to both of you (and your child) and makes sure that disability benefits are ringfenced for the disabled rather than benefitting the non-disabled.

I made the mistake of allowing my son’s disability benefits be absorbed into general income (controlled by ex) as I recognised that general indirect costs were higher due to disability but this just meant that all money had been spent when additional costs directly related to disability arose.

Person B presumably factored in the fact that council tax would need to be paid, when they invited A to move in? Was this not discussed?

I wouldn’t expect A to cover the entire amount. I also wouldn’t expect A to pool finances.

Neither person A, nor person B should be significantly disadvantaged by person A moving in, nor should either party be significantly better off than the other party.

Person A's costs would decrease from £1,700 to £800 based on your opening post while person B's income would decrease by £800 and there is an additional £190 of council tax that needs to be paid.

At a minimum, person A should contribute £990 - is the loss in B's benefits and the council tax so that B does not have less money but arguably, B should also share the benefit with them and leave both parties with equal disposable income after the change in circumstances.

To make this entirely 'equal'.. person A should pay £1,345 to person B, leaving both person A and person B £355 better off.

Person A, is only able to make these savings, because of person B, so should not keep all of these savings themselves.

Split the bills presumably if a joint household?

Is B sure they want A to move in if they are going to be worse off?

These people need to maintain separate residences. One will lose money and resent the other partner. One will feel like they don’t want to “subsidise” their partner’s financial loss, caused by the very fact that they’ve moved in.

This has disaster/resentment written all over it.

If how you divvy up the costs isn't something you can easily agree on, you shouldn't be living together anyway.

This.

Unless this is literally the only financial problem left to solve.

A person reliant on benefits and a person working should not live together unless they are going to put everything in one pot. Benefits are worked out as if it is one pot, so trying to have separate finances in a situation like this is a recipe for disaster

Legally the bill will be in both names. Morally of course the person with more income should pay more. But if a couple I would expect income to be pooled and shared accordingly

We actually don't know what would make it 'fair'. The only information we have is that currently, person A has £2000 after tax, spends £1500 on bills, but will only be paying £700 when they move in to Person B's house.

All we know from Person B is that they get UC including LCWRA, rent, and a disabled child amount, plus £120 per month maintenance. Their benefits will reduce by £800 per month, plus there will be a £190 council tax bill.

So person A will gain £800 by moving in to person B's house and will have £1300 per month. But person B could be getting a lot more than Person A in the first place.

OK I'm going with this.

So A has been paying council tax with a 25% single persons discount.

Person B has been paying nothing as they are disabled etc.

I think that A should pay 75% and B should TRY to pay the additional 25% in lost single persons discount.

And I say TRY.

I can’t see that person b has anything to gain by a moving in. Person a gets to lower their outgoings and other benefits of living with a partner while person b loses out

and person a gets put on the tenancy? Fuck that!

If you talk this through with your local council they will give you all the options
is everything your stating proveable with evidence because they will check

Both A and B, equally. If B doesn't want to pay council tax and is worried about their benefits, then A should not move in.

It doesn't sound like person A is getting much out of it?

Both it comes from the joint pot which you use to pay bills. They are both responsible.

Person B would’ve stupid to let person A move in if they will be loosing £800 plus a month “income”.

Person A must be laughing their socks off saving so much money once they move in.

How you getting single person discount if there are two people?

Good point
when I was a student my full time working partner covered all council tax.

The household is responsible for the council tax. The adults have to work out between them how much money each puts towards household expenses, including that one.
BTW, the posts would have been much easier to follow if you said 'I have 2 children and I'm moving in with my partner who lives on benefits' (or whatever) rather than introducing Person A and Person B.

All money is counted as joint money (it doesn’t all have to leave which ever persons account but a bill account should be opened

All bills that need paying are added up to give a years total spend + about 25% more to begin with as there are now more people then divide the amount by 12 and on a certain day per month the 2 adults put in 50% of the total each.
Are there any expenses that are vital like commute to work, nursery fees etc that each person pays for each month. Again these need to be taken off the total and accounted
for
Each child gets an amount allocated for pocket money
And each adult gets a cetrtain amount per month for their own spending and the rest goes in a joint savings account to top up the bill money if needed, savings, presents and a holiday fund.
After the first year if you are all careful you can get a clearer idea of what the total bills are.
Discuss budgets for everything and make sure you are covering each each mini budget for things like presents holidays etc. (I used to combine Christmas presents with the holiday fund and go somewhere hot at Christmas. Holiday was the present.

Generally disabled people are not fully exempted from council tax, even if they claim benefits - it’s determined by local authority income banding. A disabled person can only claim one exemption on top of the single persons’ discount, so in person B’s case that would be the disability exemption - which, it should be noted, not all disabled people will qualify for. Most councils restrict eligibility to needing things like an extra room, a second kitchen/bathroom, or extra space for a wheelchair due to a disability. That would result in a reduction of one council tax banding. A 100% reduction is generally only available If you have a doctor's certificate for a severe mental impairment and receive certain benefits.