I'd be grateful for some advice for my client. This is quite a complicated tale so I warn you that you may suffer brain ache if you try to follow this. Read on at your peril, you have been warned!!!!

For several years now my client has been claiming IS, DLA and CTB with no non-dep deductions in respect of other adults in the property.

The property is jointly owned by 4 sisters and a brother.

Two of the sisters are severely disabled. They each own a share that is larger than the share owned by each of the other 3 siblings.

It seems that the property cannot be sold until the two disabled sisters can no longer occupy it.

The two disabled sisters and one of the other sisters occupy the property along with the sister's husband and 3 children (one of whom is over 18 and working).

It looks as though CTB have been treating one person (one of the disabled sisters) as the householder and all the others as non-deps, with no non-dep deduction because the 'householder' has DLA Care component.

Now CT Section say that the 2 disabled sisters cannot be responsible for CT because they are SMI and the other sister and husband are responsible for CT (with a 50% reduction).

This is an area I have only a little knowledge of so I would be grateful if anyone can help us establish what is best way of reducing CT costs.

Non-disabled sister and husband have low income but not low enough to qualify for CTB.

Thanks

Shona

Try,

http:/www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/finance/ctax/pays.htm

This link does not seem to work. Think you'll find the reference to "DLTR" is a bit out of date now. What used to be DLTR is now ODPM.

An attempted answer to the question is this -

Three of adults in the property are joint owners and are all jointly liable for the CT. The partner is also jointly liable because he is the partner of a liable person. (If I read your post right only 3 of the 5 joint owners reside in the property, the 4th person being the partner of one of them.) The 18-year old son is not liable because the other adults' ownership of the property takes precedence over his mere presence in determining liability. The other two owners are not liable because they don't live there.

Whilst the two SMI people can be ignored for the purposes of assessing a discount this is not significant as there are still two other adult occupiers (well 3 actually including the 18 year-old).
I am not clear where the "50% reduction" comes in.

Importantly, their SMI status does NOT mean that they are not liable.

The position re CTB is that the two disabled sisters and the couple could each make claims. In assessing these claims the two disabled sisters would each be allocated one quarter of the CT and the couple the other half (is that where this "50%" comes in?). The relative sizes of the shares held by different owners is not relevant.

The respective "benefit households" are - each of the two disabled sisters would claim for themselves alone, the married couple and their children would constitute another separate household. My own view about the 18 year old is that s/he is a non-dependant of his parents ALONE - he is not a non-dep of all of the liable persons, but another council may disagree on that.

The final point to remember is that although the liability is split like this for CTB purposes, it does not alter there joint and several liability for the whole lot - the Council can enforce debts against any or all of them.

I'm going to get some lunch now......

Sorry about the website adress, I was on that page this morning and just copied the adress down from the top of the page. It is the deputy prime ministers website though. Perhaps rights net can find the correct address?

Hi stephenh,

Unfortunately i'm not sure what actual document you intended to link to on the deputy prime minister's website.

There is a general information booklet - 'Council Tax - A Guide to Your Bill' available by via the site -

http://www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/finance/ctax/ctaxbillguide.pdf

which does briefly touch on issues such as discounts and the disability reduction scheme, but this may not be the link you intended to highlight.