Please see below Solicitor Gerald Moran's note to a Tax Accountant, Robert Maas who is an author and his reply:-See exchange of messages below, in case of interest. Robert is a tax accountant. I have an idea that "interested person" extends to occupiers as well as owners but obviously the occupiers did not ask for the separate banding. Gerald T MoranPartner~~~~~~~~Mr Moran wrote to Mr Maas:"Your Property Taxes book has a chapter on council tax etc.As you know, for HMO's, it is the 'lowest' owner of the whole HMO that is liable, rather than mere residents. However, I have seen a suggestion that this does not apply if the HMO rooms are separately banded. The interaction between the provisions is not clear to me.Commonly the problem concerns HMO's registered under Housing Act 1988 and its predecessor, sometimes described as hotels. Occupiers have Licences of individual rooms which do not include cooking facilities nor other basic facilities save a vanity unit. A communal kitchen is on the ground floor. There are also communal bathrooms. Occupiers are single persons or couples without children - for instance, low income, foreign, sometimes pensioners or students.The landlord has paid council tax for the whole building hitherto. However, the listing officer now has listed the rooms separately - seemingly against VOA guidance that normally rooms are not self-contained flats if they have or could practicably (from physical layout etc) have basic facilities. For council tax, there can for instance be shared showers etc (as mentioned in your book) - or a hostel for 10 persons may have three separately rated "clusters" with facilities.Of course, there can be an appeal although the occupiers were not involved with the separate listing. The first they knew was when the Council sent them demands for council tax, backdated three years (some occupiers had already left and some now have decided to leave). The demands paid no heed to discounts or exemptions etc. The council said that listing was nothing to do with the council and that occupiers must pay or go to prison. Several qualify for rebate of council tax - but apparently only for the current year, not the two previous years from backdating. Naturally they are raising their grievances in correspondence as required by section 16 of the 1992 Act but it seems odd that the Council regards the building as one HMO not self-contained flats but residents are not having the benefit of the owner being the one liable for council tax because the listing officer now reckons that rooms are all self-contained flats even without any cooking, bath / shower etc. That rather takes away the point of class C in many instances.Have you come across this scenario?Gerald T MoranPartnerT: +44 (0)20 7412 0050F: +44 (0)20 7404 1226gtm@hunters-solicitors.co.ukwww.hunters-solicitors.co.uk~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The following is the reply to Mr Moran from the Tax Accountant yesterday:Gerald,"No, it’s not something that I have come across. But I don’t do much on Council Tax. I include it in my book because the publishers said that I ought to as it is a property tax. However, like you, I am astounded. I do not think that the listing officer has power to redesignate an HMO as a block of flats off his own bat. His powers seem to me to be circumscribed by Reg 3(1) of the Alteration of Lists and Appeals Regulations, and those allow him to change the band but not the categorisation. He can change the categorisation under Reg 4 but that requires someone to make a proposal to him and the only people who can make a proposal are the local authority or an “interested person”. I have not checked the definition of an interested person, but suspect that it is limited to an owner of an interest in the property. As the council have said, “Not us” and the property owner has not made a proposal, I cannot see under what power the listing officer purports to have changed the list!From a practical point of view, I would have thought that those who are entitled to rebates but for being out of time should complain to their MP (perhaps by visiting his surgery as a group). Whether aq property si an HMO or a small block of flats is a question of fact, so I think that everyone needs to appeal to keep the issue open even if at the end of the day they decide not to incur the costs.Regards,Robert
Victor Mishiku ● 4717d