There is only one Council Tax bill for each property. A property is a house, flat, maisonette, or other domestic property that someone can live in.
The person living in the property with the greatest "legal right" to it is responsible for paying the Council Tax bill. Normally this would be the owner who lives there or the tenant.
To work out who is responsible for paying the Council Tax for your home, look down the list below. The list gives ‘categories of residence’ from 1 to 5.
If category ‘1’ applies to someone living in your home, that person is responsible for paying the Council Tax bill. If category ‘1’ does not apply, continue to look down the list until you come to a category that does apply to someone living in your property. If the category that you have reached applies to two or more people, then both of them or all of them are jointly responsible for paying the Council Tax bill.
Categories of residence
1 The owner of the property (who owns the ‘freehold’)
2 A person who owns the lease
3 A tenant (including a council tenant)
4 Someone who has a license to live in the property
5 Someone who just lives there
6 If no adults live in the property as their main home, the owner or leaseholder of the property, is responsible for paying the Council Tax bill.
Joint liability
If the category for your home applies to two or more people, these people are jointly responsible for paying the bill, even if the bill is addressed to only one of them.
For example, joint owners will be jointly responsible. It is important that you identify everyone responsible for paying the bill, because anyone responsible for paying can claim Council Tax Benefit.
It will be up to the person named on the bill to collect any payments from anyone else living in the property who they consider should contribute towards the tax.
