To start a fire?

[PILEALLTHEPILLSONTHEFLOOR]

Just received a shock, a letter telling me my council tax will now be £300 up from £87 due to the 100% 2nd property premium.

Supposedly the charge is to fund police, fire and NHS. Perhaps I'll ring up all three every month to get my money's worth.

On a serious note, my house is already rented out at cost (no profit). The only reason I have the extra house (and extra subsequent mortgage) is because my family members died. I am not willing to pass on this cost to my tenants. I've already cut my food spending to the bone, I honestly don't know what to do.

OP next time you rent the house out have the tenants pay the council tax. If its put into there name they are liable also if for some reason they need UC or proof of address council tax is ideal for it. I rented out a flat before and the council tax was always in the tenants name so they were legally liable not me. I have also always had council tax put into my name when I rented. The only time it hasn't been was when I was in multi occupancy houses so maybe 4 other seperate people renting a room in a house from one landlord.

No actually, I am getting spammed by people deliberately @ing me and quoting me to circumvent my Unwatched status offering unsolicited advice and writing aggressive, hysterical and patronising posts about how I'm a shit landlord who knows nothing, exploits her tenants and puts them in an unsafe hovel. I got a nasty shock letter in the post demanding £300 per month due to a BRAND NEW LAW that only just took effect, and thanks to the kind MNetters, I now know I don't owe this as the property will in fact be tenanted very soon. Not knowing ONE new law doesn't mean I know nothing, I have been a landlord for 3 years and everything is above board and the assumptions people are insisting to be the truth here are histrionic and untrue.

Yeesh!!

I already got this resolved so no need to keep feverishly quoting me and @ ing me to get in a swipe about how landlords are all evil 😂

I am not gunna be reading any more of this drivel and will be ignoring any further spamming and @ ing.

Sorry about your DH, but what is the thread title all about @PILEALLTHEPILLSONTHEFLOOR ?

I'm not 100% sure but I believe the additional c/tax is only payable if the second property is empty. Contact your council to let them know tenants are living there. Fingers crossed x

Nobody is spamming you... we are commenting on a thread YOU created 😂 That's how discussion boards work

You've also just made some wild accusations, majority of which are completely untrue.

Your attitude genuinely is awful

There are no tenants living there

If u don’t want to charge your tenants what they rightly should be paying then that’s on you to figure out how you’re gonna manage.

I’m slightly shocked your council tax is only £87. I own only one house annd pay over £250 per month, and I don’t live in a mansion.

My council tax is going up to nearly £400 a month!

Why don't the tenants pay their council tax?

Council tax should be included in the rent. The tenants are the ones getting the benefit of the services council tax pays for, not you.

If you rent out a property, the tenant(s) pay rent, council tax, water, gas and electricity, at least that is what everyone I know who is in private rented does. I have never ever heard of the person who actually owns and rents out the property paying the council tax.

This amazed me too, I live alone in a Band A and now pay £140 a month, I would love to only have to find £87 a month

It's awful isn't it. We were in the same situation....paying 100% council tax on the property my father in law died in, for a time (he paid 75% due to single person discount), which then doubled after a time. £600 every month down the drain. Councils in England have the discretion not to charge the X2 rate....our council basically said 'tough luck, we are charging it'. Add in £250 monthly service charge for a flat where someone wasn't living - took 3 years to sell, at a massively under market value - it was all rather shit!

People are asking you if you are doing all the required legal stuff to do with letting a house @PILEALLTHEPILLSONTHEFLOOR because you don't seem to understand one of the elements of it.

Council tax is due based on who is living in the property not who owns the property. If all the tenants were full time students no council tax would be payable. If only one working adult lives in the property there would be a 25% discount.

A council tax bill of £87 a month (£1044 a year if over 12 months) is quite low even for a Band A property unless it is located in some of the London boroughs. Have you been claiming 25% discount on the property because you live alone? If you have and the tenants weren't liable for the discount, you will have been committing council tax fraud...

My friend is facing this soon as she has her mother’s house to sort out before sale. It’s a huge job. Thankfully she will be able to fund it for a while pre sale but think it will give her the push to get sorting. But such a hard job, I did it with my close friend’s DD last year after her sudden death at 57 and it was emotionally draining. You don’t get long really.

It was a tongue in cheek comment about using the fire service as she is being charged for fire services and police among other things.

Ah, I see. I was worried she was thinking of burning the place down.

@PILEALLTHEPILLSONTHEFLOOR

I know you don’t want tagging but you’ve got the perfect opportunity here to make sure all of your paperwork is watertight before the new tenants move in. Please don’t ignore it because you’ll be up shit creek when it comes to trying to get them out.

Have you got the EPC, GSC, Current how to rent guide, deposit protection and an EICR? You should have them sign for receipt and keep on top of it or this could be very problematic.

No. They should pay it themselves

Your tenants should be paying their own council tax? Separate from rent

I just wanted to say I’m so sorry to hear about your partner, you’ve been through such an awful time. Good luck with everything going forward, there was some really unnecessary nastiness on this thread.

@PILEALLTHEPILLSONTHEFLOOR Did you tell the tenants that the rent included council tax? Or are they responsible for paying all household bills?

Every house I have ever rented has required me to pay the council tax and utility bills in addition to the rent but it depends how you have marketed it and what the rental contract says?

I have to say your post is very confusing. You live in one house and inherited another, yet you have a mortgage on the inherited one for more than the house is worth, forgive me but aren't you supposed to gain something when you inherit a house - it makes no sense? So you are trying to sell your home, to move into the inherited one you are just renting out? Is that right?

Can I jump on this thread with a question? We currently live in a friend's second home under an informal guardian-type agreement. There is no written contract; they just let us stay there in return for us maintaining the property and keeping it looking lived in (after they had a problem with squatters previously). Because there's no paperwork in our name, they pay all the bills and we reimburse them. Our agreement was that this would continue for a year (we're currently 3 months in) and then they intend to sell the property.
For council tax purposes, will the property be considered empty or occupied?