Tenancy – Sole or main residence – Appellant occupying property under assured shorthold tenancy – Appellant paying rent on property – Appellant continuing to pay rent after six-month term – Respondent local authority finding appellant liable for council tax – Appellant challenging liability on ground of non-residence – Leasehold valuation tribunal (LVT) holding appellant liable to council tax as periodic assured tenant – Whether LVT erring in law – Appeal dismissed
In October 1997, the appellant signed a six-month assured shorthold tenancy of a house. The tenancy agreement provided that the property should not be sublet. The respondent landlords let the property through a lettings agency that collected the rent on their behalf and dealt with any administrative matters. The agency continued to receive rent from the appellant’s bank account until a new tenant took over the lease in October 2001.
The respondents sought payment of unpaid council tax for the period between 22 October 1997 and 22 October 2001. However, the appellant claimed that he had never lived in the property, but had merely been helping others, who unable to secure a lease in their own names because of their poor credit rating, to obtain accommodation. The respondents brought proceedings in the magistrates’ court to recover the sums due and, in June 2005, the court made a liability order.
The appellant appealed to the leasehold valuation tribunal (LVT). He denied liability for council tax since, despite being a tenant under the six-month lease, he argued that he had not lived in the property. The respondents contended that, apart from the last six months, the property had been his sole or main residence. In support of that contention, they provided evidence of applications for licences that the appellant had made, in which he gave the property’s address as his residence. Furthermore, another person had stated in other licensing applications made on his own behalf that the appellant had been his landlord when he lodged at the property. Accordingly, the respondents argued that, save for the last six months, the appellant had been a statutory tenant residing in a property with multiple occupation. Alternatively, they argued that the property had been in multiple occupation for the entire period.
The LVT dismissed the appellant’s appeal, concluding that, during the relevant period, the appellant had continued to be the tenant of the property pursuant to a statutory period assured tenancy, within section 5 of the Housing Act 1988, that made him liable for council tax for the relevant period. The LVT did not decide in terms whether the appellant had been resident during that period. The appellant appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
In the light of the evidence and in all the circumstances, the LVT’s reasoning did not error in law in approaching the issue of multiple occupancy. The tribunal had not misunderstood the law or failed to appreciate the issue for determination pursuant to the statutory regime contained in the sections 6 and 8 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and regulations 2 and 2A of the Council Tax (Liability for Owners) Regulations 1992 (SI 1992/551), namely, whether the occupant had an interest in part only, rather than the whole, of the property.
A periodic tenancy would arise when a tenant held over on the expiry of a lease and paid rent that the landlord accepted. In the present case, the appellant had not suggested that he had informed the respondents that he was not in occupation or that he had sublet the property. It would have been fanciful to conclude that he had done so when he later claimed that the entire arrangement had been entered into in a clandestine way to avoid legal difficulties for the actual tenants.
On the evidence, the only conclusion that the LVT could have reached had it considered the matter directly was that the appellant had continued to be a tenant of the entire property at common law when the fixed term expired. Accordingly, the LVT’s error in failing to decide whether that condition for a statutory tenancy under the 1988 Act was satisfied and in concluding that the appellant had been a statutory tenant was not material.
Miles Croally (instructed by Lees Lloyd Whitley, of Bromborough) appeared for the appellant; Ranjit Bhose (instructed by legal department of Cambridge City Council) appeared for the respondents.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
