Council tax for vacated rental property

[Matthew54]

Location: London, England

Hi,

We're expats and a bit freaked out. We just received an application for a liability order for a flat we vacated two months ago for council tax. We've done everything we were supposed to. We informed the council we were moving. We're not sure what to do now. It seems like based on the paperwork we have no actual defenses we use with the magistrate. We've emailed the council, but what else should we do?

I suspect our landlady never informed the council we vacated the property and this cost is being passed onto us at the moment. The council in question is also Newham, so we're not hopeful they'll actually respond to us.

Should we just pay this to wrap it up?

Don't you have a tenancy agreement with the dates you vacated or emails to your landlord to the same effect? You just need to inform the council, the usually have a dedicated email address for this. Include and proof. Include your agent if you had one.

I assume you paid up to the end date you lived there?

If you have already sent proof then is does take weeks often for it to get through the system so just wait. How did you get the initial warning if you don't live at the address?

We paid for mail forwarding thank goodness.

Yes we were paid up until we left. I’ve submitted all the evidence to the email address attached to the notice. It’s not an insignificant amount of money and I don’t get how this happened.

@Matthew54 It’s because councils are months behind in dealing with council tax changes. Or rebates! It goes on forever. They do have your info about vacating but haven’t activated it yet. So they asked for money. Just inform them of your previous communications with them.