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Case 14 of 19 · Level 3
Council tax · a company tenant, a director's name
Whose bill is it?
Docketory's own files · about 15 minutes
The complaint
A property let to a company and run as short-stay accommodation had its council tax account in the director's own name. The account went to the council's enforcement agents against him personally, and an agent attended, asking for about £3,050. The next day he asked the council to review who was liable: the company held the tenancy, so the bill was the company's, not his. He also asked whether a property used this way should pay business rates rather than council tax at all.
The council's answer
The council registered him personally as the council tax payer from June of the first year to December of the second, on information the letting agent gave it for the landlord. When it reviewed the account, the tenancy agreement it held did not state that the tenant was a limited company, so it found him personally liable. Whether the property should pay business rates was for him to ask the Valuation Office Agency; the council would not ask on his behalf. When he sent his own copy of the agreement, the company's name on it was one word short: it left out "Limited". So the agreement alone did not show that a company held the tenancy. The council asked, within 14 days, for evidence that the company had paid the rent and the deposit, and said payment could not be held back while the question was decided.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The agent's visit
The enforcement agents' email: an agent had attended, and the sum asked for was about £3,050.
Exhibit B · How the name got there
The council put the account in his name from June of the first year to December of the second, on what the letting agent told it for the landlord.
Exhibit C · His review request
Sent the day after the visit: the company holds the tenancy, so the bill is the company's; and should this property be on business rates instead?
Exhibit D · The tenancy agreement
It names the company as the tenant, but the company's name on it leaves out the word "Limited".
Exhibit E · The council's first answer
Two months after his request: as the agreement did not state that the tenant was a limited company, he was personally liable. The business rates question was his to take to the Valuation Office Agency.
Exhibit F · The council's second answer
Still no, for now. The agreement alone did not show a company held the tenancy. Evidence that the company paid the rent and the deposit, within 14 days. Payment could not wait.
Exhibit G · The hold
A month after his request, the council put the account on hold at the agents while it looked, and asked for a full copy of the tenancy agreement signed by all parties.
Who paid the rent and the deposit
The company's bank statements show the company paid the rent and the deposit, and the deposit protection papers are in the company's name.
The period on the account
The account runs from June of the first year to December of the second, when the council's registration of him ends.
The Valuation Office Agency's view
Not in the file: no application to the Valuation Office Agency was made, so nobody has decided whether the property should pay business rates instead.
Who is liable for council tax on a let property
Background, not from this file: council tax falls on whoever the law puts first in its list of liable people. Where a company holds the tenancy and nobody lives there as their home, the bill is the company's, not its director's. A council can ask for proof before it changes the name on an account.
Whether payment could wait
The council would not put the account on hold while anything else was argued. Payment was due on the date it set, whoever the payer turned out to be.
The agents' position
The agents held the account while the council reviewed it, on the council's instruction, and took no further step.
Which way do you decide?
The ruling
Given by the council
Liability moved to the company
Why
Once the company's bank statements showed that the company had paid the rent and the deposit, the council accepted that the company held the tenancy. It amended the liability from the director to the company and withdrew the recovery action against him; the enforcement file against him closed. The bill did not go away: it was reissued to the company, payment was due in September, and the company had not paid it by October. The business rates question was never decided, because nobody asked the Valuation Office Agency.
What had to be done
Amend the liability from the director to the company; withdraw the recovery action and recall the agents; reissue the bill to the company.
What an adjudicator takes from this. A council doubts a document that is one word short, and asks who paid. The argument about who was liable did not move it; the bank statements did. And being right about the payer moved the bill, it did not cancel it.
Docketory's take
One missing word on a tenancy agreement cost the director months, and brought an enforcement agent to the door for a bill that was the company's. He argued who was liable. What moved the council was the company's bank statements showing who had paid the rent and the deposit. Being right moved the bill; it did not make it go away.
Based on a case from Docketory's own files. The details are changed so that the story on this site does not give the answer away; the facts the decision turned on are as they were.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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