Responsibility for Council Tax

Who is responsible for paying Council Tax?

If you are aged 18 or over, you may be responsible for paying Council Tax.

To work out who is responsible for a property, we use a hierarchy of liability. The person highest on this list is responsible:

resident freeholder
resident leaseholder
resident tenant
resident licensee
any other resident
the owner (if no one lives in the property)

A resident is someone aged 18 or over who has their only or main home at the property.

Joint Responsibility

If more than one person falls into the same category (for example, joint tenants), they are jointly liable.

This means we can ask all of you, or any one of you, to pay the full amount.

Married couples, civil partners, and people living together as partners are also jointly liable, even if they do not have equal legal interest in the property

If you are responsible for paying the Council Tax but haven’t yet registered, please visit our Moving Home page

If you think you are not responsible

If we have told you that you need to pay Council Tax, but you disagree, please check the following first:

If your tenancy agreement states that Council Tax is included in your rent, please see the list at the top of the page. If you are the only person in the property that features on the list, you are responsible. We cannot remove you.

In this case, you should speak to your landlord or managing agent about how payments are arranged.

If you have moved out of the property, you will need to inform us that you have changed your address.

If the above does not apply, please check the criteria below

Tenants

As a tenant you are responsible for Council Tax. Your responsibility begins on the date stated on your tenancy agreement, or the date agreed with your landlord that you could move in.

If you rent one room only, and do not have a joint tenancy for the whole property, you are not responsible. In this case, the landlord is responsible because the property is treated as a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO).

If you only occupy one room but have a joint tenancy with other people for the whole property, then you will be responsible for the council tax. You will be jointly and severally responsible for the bill with the other tenants.

When a tenant moves out

The law sets out that when a property is empty, the owner is liable for council tax. The owner is whoever has a material interest in the property - either with a freehold or leasehold interest granted for 6 months or more.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 introduced tenancy reforms from 1 May 2026 which specifies who is liable for the Council Tax should a tenant leave a property empty before their tenancy end date.

Assured shorthold tenancies

A common form of tenancy was an assured shorthold tenancy (AST) for a fixed term such as 6 months.

A tenant with a fixed-term tenancy of 6 months or more held a material interest and if they vacated before the end of their tenancy, they were liable for the council tax empty charge until their tenancy end-date.

If a tenant remained in the property after the expiry of the 6 months (in the absence of any provision in the original contract to the contrary or a new contract having been entered into), then the AST automatically reverted to a statutory periodic tenancy.

Statutory periodic tenancies

If a tenancy reverted to a statutory periodic tenancy this started a new contract, and if the rent was paid calendar monthly, then the contract ran on a month-by-month basis.

A tenant with a month-by-month statutory periodic tenancy did not have a material interest in the property, so they were only liable for council tax while they were living in the property. Once they vacated, the landlord was responsible for the council tax empty charge.

Contractual periodic tenancy

Instead of a statutory periodic tenancy, landlords could make clear in the original tenancy agreement that the tenancy would become a contractual periodic tenancy after the fixed period.

This meant the tenant continued to have a material interest in the property as the extension was treated as a continuation of the original contract.

Case law

Case law provided clarity as to who was liable for the council tax once a tenant vacated.

In the High Court case of MacAttram v London Borough of Camden 2012, the judge stated that fixed term and statutory periodic tenancies could not be joined together to make one total tenancy period of over 6 months.

Instead of being a continuation of the original tenancy, the tenancy became a new periodic tenancy and so the tenant could not be regarded as holding a material interest in the property from the start date of that new periodic tenancy.

In Leeds City Council v Broadley 2016 the High Court held that a contractual periodic tenancy following a 6 month fixed term took effect as a single term and not as two separate tenancies. Therefore the council tax liability remained with the tenant rather than the landlord.

From 1 May 2026, the Renters’ Rights Act introduced important changes to private tenancies in England.

The Act:

abolished fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs)
replaced them with assured periodic tenancies from the start
removed the ability for fixed-term tenancies to create a material interest of 6 or 12 months

The Act includes provisions that clarify how Council Tax liability applies now that all private sector tenancies are periodic.

It states that tenants are liable for council tax until the end of the notice period, where they have served notice to end the tenancy, even if they leave the property earlier.

This is set out in section 28 of the Renters’ Rights Act.

Landlords and managing agent

Landlords are responsible for Council Tax, as the property owner, when a property is empty and there is no tenant.

From 1 May 2026, where a tenant has given notice, they will usually remain liable for Council Tax until the end of their notice period, even if they leave the property earlier.

If you believe this is incorrect, you will need to provide:

evidence of rent being received
a signed tenancy agreement
a copy of the tenant’s notice to end the tenancy (where applicable)
a cover letter explaining who you believe should be responsible

Property Owners

As a property owner, you are responsible for Council Tax from the date you complete the purchase of the property.