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I work abroad for long periods. Can I seek to pay my council tax in proportion to the amount of time I am in residence?
I have a query regarding the law when it comes to paying my council tax on my UK property. I am a 31 year old British Citizen, male, single and I have my own property in the UK (on mortgage). At present I pay the full council tax minus a 20-25pc discount for a single person. However I work overseas on a rotation whereby I spend 8 weeks away from UK and then 3 weeks in the UK (living in my property), then 8 weeks abroad and so on, therefore my property is left unoccupied for approx 8 months in a year though it is fully furnished. As council tax debt is considered a serious debt (i believe you can be sent to prison for it), I am thinking of paying them a certain percentage of my annual council tax bill based on the number of days I spend in the UK annually. My council would then inevitably take me to court to recover the remaining bill, so legally would I have much chance of winning? My main argument is that since I am not in the UK for most of the year, I am being forced to pay for a service which I am not using. Would this be a valid/strong argument in a court of law? I have already spoken to my local council, but they are not willing to offer me any reduction other than the 20-25pc single person's discount so they would probably end up prosecuting me if I paid less. I am classed as a non-UK resident by the Inland Revenue and I don't pay any income tax on my overseas salary.
Some property which is empty can be exempt from council tax but it has to be unoccupied and substantially unfurnished. The exemption applies for a maximum of six months and the property has to be vacant for the whole of this period (although up to six weeks of occupation during the period is allowed). Going into the details of your circumstances it appears you would not qualify on this basis.
Outside the above provision, Council Tax is not divisible by the number of days you use the service and you would not succeed if you went to court on the grounds that your overseas absences would exempt you from the liability. It would be unreasonable for the court to require a council to know whether you were in residence or not in order that they could levy precisely the correct figure based on the proportion of your occupancy. If you want to operate on those terms you don't need a house, you need an hotel room.
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