Council Tax on home of deceased person
Discussion
I was just reading the thread about a council chasing for Council Tax which prompts me to put this question out to the combined PistonHeads knowledgebase:
My mum passed away at the end of 2019 leaving an empty house for us to clear and put on the market. The job was left to my sister and I to clear the property of all possessions and furniture, make some much needed repairs to ceilings and reglaze around 20 double glazing units that had failed. Due to my sister and I living around 30 and 40 miles respectively away from the property, we need to travel to get there. With the pandemic starting at the end of February last year, pretty much the only things we could get done on my mum's estate were paperwork, so I applied and got probate done at the end of February 2020. Travel to the property was off limits due to the lock downs.
We got the house emptied and the repairs done for the beginning of November 2020. Getting rid of waste was difficult due to the local tips being shut. Getting furniture removed was a real headache as charity shops were closed, or those that would collect furniture were no longer doing so or you had to leave furniture outside the house. My sister and I were not up to carrying double wardrobes downstairs and out of the door.
We put the house on the market November 2020 and it sold within days. However, the sale only went through last week, so took the best part of 4 months. Why? Well coronavirus and the Stamp Duty holiday made for a rather unusual but incredibly busy market. Solicitors had got very busy.
The fly in the ointment - just before last Christmas, I visited the property and picked up a letter from the council which was a Council Tax bill, backdated to August 2020 i.e. 6 months after the date of probate. I called them and they said that they routinely charge council tax on properties that have been empty, 6 months after grant of probate. We were therefore lumbered with an unexpected bill for some £900.
I have emailed the council but they take (in general) a month to respond to every email. I have made the point that:
1. they only notified us of a liability some 4 months after that liability started
2. the house was empty - with no one there to benefit from a service
3. due to coronavirus we were not legally able to get to the house for the majority of the time, and could not get people to help us
4. the council's tips were closed - so if we could get to the house, we could not use one of the key services for which we would be paying for and benefitting from
As above, emails are slow to receive a response, but I have made the above points to them. I do not know what laws come in to play or if the council has some local discretion which it can apply. I did receive their leaflet that explains council tax on empty properties, but I think there is a good argument to push back here. After all, they are really applying a charge to my mum's estate (and she always paid her council tax / rates for the 72 years she was there), and she is no longer with is (God bless her).
Any thoughts in rights here or how to appeal?
Interestingly, in checking my mum's affairs, I discovered the council owes her £300 since 2018 due to overpayment of her care bill. That is (of course) a different department though!
My mum passed away at the end of 2019 leaving an empty house for us to clear and put on the market. The job was left to my sister and I to clear the property of all possessions and furniture, make some much needed repairs to ceilings and reglaze around 20 double glazing units that had failed. Due to my sister and I living around 30 and 40 miles respectively away from the property, we need to travel to get there. With the pandemic starting at the end of February last year, pretty much the only things we could get done on my mum's estate were paperwork, so I applied and got probate done at the end of February 2020. Travel to the property was off limits due to the lock downs.
We got the house emptied and the repairs done for the beginning of November 2020. Getting rid of waste was difficult due to the local tips being shut. Getting furniture removed was a real headache as charity shops were closed, or those that would collect furniture were no longer doing so or you had to leave furniture outside the house. My sister and I were not up to carrying double wardrobes downstairs and out of the door.
We put the house on the market November 2020 and it sold within days. However, the sale only went through last week, so took the best part of 4 months. Why? Well coronavirus and the Stamp Duty holiday made for a rather unusual but incredibly busy market. Solicitors had got very busy.
The fly in the ointment - just before last Christmas, I visited the property and picked up a letter from the council which was a Council Tax bill, backdated to August 2020 i.e. 6 months after the date of probate. I called them and they said that they routinely charge council tax on properties that have been empty, 6 months after grant of probate. We were therefore lumbered with an unexpected bill for some £900.
I have emailed the council but they take (in general) a month to respond to every email. I have made the point that:
1. they only notified us of a liability some 4 months after that liability started
2. the house was empty - with no one there to benefit from a service
3. due to coronavirus we were not legally able to get to the house for the majority of the time, and could not get people to help us
4. the council's tips were closed - so if we could get to the house, we could not use one of the key services for which we would be paying for and benefitting from
As above, emails are slow to receive a response, but I have made the above points to them. I do not know what laws come in to play or if the council has some local discretion which it can apply. I did receive their leaflet that explains council tax on empty properties, but I think there is a good argument to push back here. After all, they are really applying a charge to my mum's estate (and she always paid her council tax / rates for the 72 years she was there), and she is no longer with is (God bless her).
Any thoughts in rights here or how to appeal?
Interestingly, in checking my mum's affairs, I discovered the council owes her £300 since 2018 due to overpayment of her care bill. That is (of course) a different department though!
Thanks everyone, responses and experiences are interesting and helpful.
It feels like someone is twisting the knife on this. We have been through a lot during the last year or so. Tidying up a deceased parent's affairs and emptying a lifetime of memories was a big job and not exactly easy or enjoyable. Good old council is ready to kick us when we are already down. Whilst councils have their rules, it has hardly been a normal year. Sticks with me that they can send an estate a significant bill, yet the key parts of the service we needed e.g. recycling and waste, was not available much of the time. I will persevere with my argument and see where it goes. If I have to hand over that kind of money, I will get my money's worth in their time investigating it.
It feels like someone is twisting the knife on this. We have been through a lot during the last year or so. Tidying up a deceased parent's affairs and emptying a lifetime of memories was a big job and not exactly easy or enjoyable. Good old council is ready to kick us when we are already down. Whilst councils have their rules, it has hardly been a normal year. Sticks with me that they can send an estate a significant bill, yet the key parts of the service we needed e.g. recycling and waste, was not available much of the time. I will persevere with my argument and see where it goes. If I have to hand over that kind of money, I will get my money's worth in their time investigating it.
The local tip in question was closed part of the time. Even once open, it was not a normal service with caveats of 'essentials waste only. With a queue that was some 1-2 hours a time, or odd number plated cars one day and evens the next, by no way did it fit with clearing a house some 40 miles away.
House clearance companies wanted to charge a fortune and told us furniture would be broken up for power station fuel. So we would have been paying to destroy perfectly good pieces including an antique chest. Charity shops that normally want this stuff had stopped their services. They did not have room to keep collecting furniture as their shops were shut. They had reached capacity for storage. Eventually, we got a lucky break with a hospice and had to pay them to remove stuff.
All I am saying is that this took a lot of time due to the prevailing circumstances that everyone had to adapt and work through.
House clearance companies wanted to charge a fortune and told us furniture would be broken up for power station fuel. So we would have been paying to destroy perfectly good pieces including an antique chest. Charity shops that normally want this stuff had stopped their services. They did not have room to keep collecting furniture as their shops were shut. They had reached capacity for storage. Eventually, we got a lucky break with a hospice and had to pay them to remove stuff.
All I am saying is that this took a lot of time due to the prevailing circumstances that everyone had to adapt and work through.
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