pb.farmer@virgin.net Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 We let a house to 4 students. For academic year 2006/07 we used separate agreements to avoid problems with tenants needing to start tenancies on different dates. Unknown to us, one of the students dropped out of his course early in the academic year but stayed living in the house. He notified the local council and paid council tax in respect of the property for the remainder of the tenancy even though 3 other students were also living there. When his tenancy came to an end, he told us he had ceased being a student and had been paying council tax, but we did nothing further as he had paid the council tax and we duly refunded his deposit. 6 months later, we received a demand for council tax in respect of the period of his tenancy and when we queried it were told that because of the separate agreements for each tenant, the landlord (i.e. us) was liable for the council tax and therefore they had now refunded the tax paid to our former tenant and were replacing that with a demand to us. Where do we stand as it is unlikely we can get the money back from the former tenant? Why did the council not tell him he wasn't liable when he offered to pay and approach us then so we could have recovered the money from the tenant? This seems grossly unreasonable on the part of the council - after all they had there money and didn't communicate with us until 6 months after the event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Dewsberry Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Strewth .........!! That is not nice .....I suspect T wised up to the fact that he wasn't legally obliged to have his name on the bill ...and then requested the refund ... Legally this is correct ..as an hmo final responsibility will lie with LL/owner. BUT check your ast .....mine clearly states that T is resosible of payment of CT (if any is due! re students etc) so although council cant enforce payment from hi ..only you ....You can ... As he paid first time then hopefully he wil pay second time ...Personally would send him a letter demanding immediate payment per ast terms ...failure to do so will result in immediate action from Debt collector OR small claims proceedings ...... How is the ast looking ? Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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