WARNING FOR TENANTS
Ok these court decisions seem boring but they can have massive implications. This one is about who is liable for Council Tax. It means you may leave your tenancy but if the house stays empty, you rather than the Landlord will have to pay the council tax.
This will mean that even if you were a student with a student exemption, as you are no longer living in the house you can be made to pay council tax. Students need to be warned about this risk especially, but it does apply to all tenants.
Leeds City Council v Broadley [2016] EWCA Civ 1213 appeal from the High Court (QB [2016] EWHC 1839 (Admin) CO/933/2016
The High Court had dismissed an appeal against a VTE decision that the tenant, rather than the landlord, was liable for council tax as the tenancy agreement continued beyond six months as periodical monthly tenancies. They remained liable, with a ma-terial interest inferior to the land-lord’s, even though they had va-cated the property because the tenancies had not been termi-nated on the date the tenant left. (Reported in ViP Issue 40 page 7 and Issue 42 page 3).
The Council’s argument was that it was not possible to have a ‘continuation tenancy’ – a single property interest comprising both a fixed and periodic term – and that, if that was the intention, it could not be a tenancy at all but must be a contractual licence. In that case the tenant would be liable only during his residence, under s6(2)(d).
Reviewing the provisions of the legislation and the relevance of the case law, the Court of Ap-peal concluded that the ar-rangement at issue in the appeal pointed to a single grant formed of a fixed term followed by a peri-odic term, and that these leases were a "commercial reality" and were "well known to the com-mon law", without their validity having been raised. The appeal was therefore dismissed.
