Updating post from Reddit.
For various reasons I missed council tax letters for a property I own as it was sitting empty. I only realised when I had a court summons, I paid immediately the full amount for the year. A month later the property is now let. I wasn’t thinking when I saw the court summons and so we have now paid for the years council tax which should in theory be paid by the tenants from the date they moved in.
Does anyone have any experience of asking the council for a refund. Or do I just have to eat it. Yes I do realise I’m stupid.
Tell them the move out date and the new tenants details. They will create a new account for your tenant and will charge them from the move in date, and will credit you for your overpayment, which they will be able to refund.
Tell them when your tenants moved in and give their details and send the AST. They will issue you a refund and then bill your tenants from their move in date.
Call the council and explain. Keep everything like this well documented and above board. The move in date of the tenant is when THEY should be paying (as you have said), if you 'eat it' or ask the tenant to pay you or any combination, you dont know how/if it will bite you back in months/years to come.
You wont be the first, or the last and fingers crossed you speak with someone sensible!
Check with your council. But you do get a revised bill, if you move out of the property early.
It’s that I’ve already paid. I will phone them tomorrow.
Yeah just tell them the date you stopped being liable, eg start of rental contract date, then the council will refund you and send a new bill to the property for the tenants
Yeah, they’ll likely give you a refund if you are in credit after the revised bill
Ask the Council for a rebate when the new tenants move in, and then it is their responsibility.
You could higher the rent and say council tax included? saves a lot of fuss as council can be painful to get hold off.
Don't be a douche, it was your mistake. Do not punish your tenant for your mistake. Eat it and when the year is up the tenant will have to start to pay council tax. Just be straightforward with your tenant and just tell them due to an error on your part the council tax is paid up for the year.
But I know there will many many landlords out there who would increase the rent to cover the council tax payments which is why landlords get a very very bad name.
How is that being a douche? It’s normal for tenants to pay council tax themselves, and directly to the council, it’s part of living somewhere.
The council tax has already been paid for the year but a tenant has recently moved in and the OP wants the tenant to pay what ever the monthly amount would have been back to him/her. That is why I said what I said.
So OP has paid for something that the tenant is obligated to pay for and would like to rectify that, so that they’re not paying their tenant’s bills. There’s absolutely nothing unreasonable about that. The council should refund OP and the tenants can pay the council tax owed for the period they’ve lived there. It’s unreasonable to try and make OP feel bad about that.
There are almost NO landlords who will get involved in council tax. What are you talking about?
Asking the tenant to cover the council tax which is a tax everyone is expected to pay when they live in a property isn’t douche behaviour.
It’s just as much the tenant’s obligation to inform the council when they move in, in order to be billed promptly. The fact is that the tenants sat on it for a year without taking any action themselves when they should know they should be paying c tax.
I wouldn’t actually ask the tenants for money. (Too embarrassing ). I’ll see what the council does when I tell them I no longer live at the address and leave it at that.
You tell the council you're moving out, give them the tenants contact details, and the day you moved out as the day the tenants moves in
The excess tax will be sent back to you.