Hiya,

Sounds like a really complicated situation, I think the landlady's best bet is to get advice from the CAB.  Sorry can't be of more help but there seems to be loads of different factors here like separating the house and what is on contract, if there is one and best looked at by someone with legal knowledge.

Sarah x

yes indeed but it should be clear ...the contract says tenancy includes bills, but what the tenant did was to declare he was living in a self contained flat without letting the landlady know of his wereabouts...he was after the benefits altough the landlady specified at the beginning that she does not take people on benefits. He went to the council by his own accord and sorted himself out with the benefits. When he found some work  the council notified him of stopping the benefits, so he turned to the landlady to pay his council tax instead of the council who refuse now  to do it as he was back in work. He declared also that he used to live in that slf contained flat for about 2 years which was not true, the partition wall was built last year only. Now the council asked him to pay the money from 2 years ago.

I think he just wanted to twist the situation to his advantage and the landlady should get some help from somebody as it wasn't her fault. She paid council tax for the whole  property and the bills were all included for the tenant, everything was legal until he started the mess with the benefits. Because the tenant did things of his own I think he should sort it now.  I am also a  tenant these days, but I do think that lots of tenants try to take advantage of landlords and the oppsite.

 If u can't afford and you don't like it, just move. But people nowadays lack the common sense and I dread those documentaries on telly about owning a house and not being able to take the bad  tenant out for 7 years?!

ANyway thank you for your input!

A

Hi

From what you've said, by building the wall she has created a separate property and the council tax will be changed accordingly. Hers should change as well as the "new" property being created on the valuation roll.

She should talk directly to the local assessors office and query both her valuation and the valuation for the property the tenant lives in. If she thinks they are incorrect (and that includes the effective date) she should appeal them. She has six months to do this. If she has the receipts etc for the building work then this will help.

She should check here for more info: http://www.voa.gov.uk/

Unless the tenancy agreement stated that his circumstances could not change and he would have been in breach of his tenancy agreement to need benefits to meet his rental payment then there is nothing she can do on that front.

HTH

Lottie

Apologies CL, I can't seem to ditch my badge!

CL of Money Matters

It sounds like a pretty complex situation. To be honest, I would imagine it will be the tenants responsibility to pay his council tax as it is under his name.  But the landlady should have contacted the relevent people when she built the wall to see if it made the place self contained (if it had one council tax bill before for both) and that is what she needs to do know. Its not for the tenant to decide on the status of the property, and it doesnt really matter now as she can have it assessed. If the place is deemed to be self contained then the tenancy he has would probably be worthless anyway. But I have to say I think it is the landladys fault here really, it is her property and when she built that wall, regardless of why it was built, it was her responsibility to find out if it changed the property legally.  I would imagine though that if they share utilities (gas water electric etc) it would be one property not two.

 

 

 

It was a self-contained annexe (containing kitchen etc) before the wall was built - as such it should have been registered for council tax all along, which the landlady should have done.

The tenant is  usually responsible for the council tax, but the property was let as bills inclusive ... as the property should have been registered by the landlady as an annexe and she should have been paying council tax on it all this time, the tenant could therefore assume that she had  been paying it, so would have some elbow room to argue this matter.

Even if you have your own granny in an annexe, or if  you have an annexe your own family/granny could live in, it should pay its own council tax.