Who pays Council Tax?

Who pays Council Tax?

It is usually any person (or people) over the age of 18 living in a property who have to pay the Council tax. There is an order of priority, a 'pecking order', to who is liable to pay the Council tax for a property. The order of priority is:

1. The person who lives there, who owns the freehold
2. The person who lives there, who owns the leasehold
3. The person who lives there, who is a statutory or 'secure' tenant
4. The person who lives there, who has a contractual licence
5. The person who lives there
6. The owner

To find out who is responsible for the bill, we ask who is living there, and what interest they have in the property. We go through the order of priority in turn, to see which situation applies to the property, to see who is liable to pay. In a property where there are tenants, going through the order of priority, the tenants would have to pay, not the landlord. If there is no-one living in the property, then the owner is liable to pay Council tax.

It may be that you are entitled to a discount or exemption - please see our change of address or circumstances pages.

Joint and several liability

Joint and several liability means that anybody with the same interest in a property, or who are at the same level in the order of priority, are jointly liable to pay the Council tax. It also means that any of these people would be expected to pay the bill, if it remained unpaid. Married couples and people living together as partners are considered to be jointly and severally liable (whether or not they have an equal interest in the property). You are considered the partner of a person if you are husband and wife or living together as husband and wife, or if you are civil partners or living together as civil partners.

Please see our Joint Account factsheet (pdf, 42 KB).