Before I go into detail I would like to be clear that I have been naive on this scenario and totally accept my wrongdoing! My intention is to fix the situation but I'm looking to find out what I can expect in case it's likely to cause huge financial problems.
Around 3 years ago, I moved in with my partner who lives alone in a flat they own in london. Originally this was a temporary move while I was flat hunting, so while I moved my bank addresses to make sure I still got my mail, I didn't register to vote or join the council tax.
Another factor in this is my partner is on UC and therefore gets a council tax discount, plus the single person discount, so it didn't make sense to me at the time to put extra financial strain on them by putting me on the council tax, just for a temporary move. (even though we'd split the full cost 50/50, this would work out more expensive for my partner than their current discounted rate. Perhaps not relevant but while I do pay the majority of other utilities and food costs, we don't share finances and I don't intend to change this). For context, I do have a salary and while I don't have savings I would not be classed low income.
So now it's 3 years later, the relationship got more serious and therefore I never moved out, and honestly I hadn't put any thought into council tax since the initial move.
With elections going on I looked into registering to vote recently and basically became shit scared at my situation, and worried that if I do register now that will alert the council to my situation and we could be hit by a 3 year bill or fine or something which we can't afford. Also from looking at my credit score, I'm aware not being on the electoral role has affected it so I don't want to continue avoiding the problem.
Has anyone else gone through anything like this and had experience in registering to vote after a long period of not being registered at a property? For example could I just register at the property as if I moved in now, or would they look into where I've been for the last 3 years?
Another option to delay the inevitable is I could register to vote at my parent's address since that won't affect their bill - I'd be intrigued to know if there are consequences to this but in reality I'm looking to just put things right and be registered to the correct property.
I've tried looking for information on this online but haven't found anything so would love to hear from your experiences/ what you recommend I should do 😓