Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Landlord advice about Haringey Council Tax
I am wondering if there are any other landlords out there with the same problem as myself. When a tenant leaves a flat in Haringey, or enters a new tenancy as a Landlord I need to change the responsibility for Council Tax payments.
I used to be able to call up the Council, wait for about half an hour on the phone, and then sort it out. There is no portal online for landlords to do this. Now it is impossible to do this on the phone as they never answer.
They usually take about 2 months to respond to emails. Despite my best efforts to change the Council Tax for a tenant earlier this year, they did not answer my email yet sent me a court order for non payment.
I had to pay the court fees and I paid the year's council tax up front to save going to court and then had to ask the tenant to pay me back for it monthly on top of the rent.
I now have another flat which has recently become vacant. My tenants have registered that they have left and I have sent the Council an email stating my details and correspondence address but I am not optimistic of swift action. If another tenant moves in before they sort this out they will no doubt get confused and make errors.
It is a ridiculously slow and inefficient system in this borough.
Can I ask what other landlords do about this? Thank you.
Tags for Forum Posts: a, advice, for, issue, landlord, landlords
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Samantha Osborne on
-
I always email council.tax@haringey.gov.uk and have never had an issue, they appear to respond quite quickly.
I have just emailed them this week. Is this the same email address you are using? I have used this email address for at least 5 years if not longer. At least you should have evidence of the email being sent, I would cc yourself.
I may be wrong, but I think if the tenancy is within the statutory period the tenant is liable if leaves early. Where the tenancy becomes statutory periodic and they leave early then it's the landlord's liability see http://www.landlordsguild.com/how-to-ensure-your-tenant-is-liable-f...
-
Permalink Reply by Helen Myers on
-
Thank you for your reply.
I was using that email address and got a holding email the next day but it took 2 months for a reply to come through. I had emailed them again at least twice when I had not got a reply, and replies to those came through months later as well. When the Court Order came through I had the option of going to a Haringey Office and stating my case on a particular day but that was not convenient so I just paid the court fees and paid off the amount rather than going to court.
I emailed them 2 days ago about the recently vacant flat and have had no reply yet, so let's see..
The tenants had not broken their contract. It was a straightforward change of name and payment responsibility.
-
-
Why not add it to rent and pay it yourself save all the hassle just an idea
-
-
Hi Helen, I'm glad you mentioned on the forum. There is no auto receipt for the email. I have just resent mine and selected the read receipt. I think I am also going to send a letter with the page of the Tenancy agreement's dates and register it. I Councils are making cut backs so most likely taking longer than usual, I used to get through to the Council Tax department quite easily but have been emailing the last few year. Enfield Council are a nightmare and if call the council tax line can wait over an hour and they were pulling the telephone service completely. I live on the South coast so going into the office is not really an option for me, so best to be safe than sorry.
I added the extra info, as it's a fairly recent change, just in case you weren't aware.
-
-
I had this problem and eventually went to customer service upstairs at the library where I was able to sort everything out on the spot. Never got thru on phone or got email reply...
-
Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
-
I believe as a landlord you do not have a liability for the first first 30 days of council tax if the place is unfurnished.
Having had problems in the past on this issue I involved my local councilors, Zena in particular in Harringay ward was especially helpful.
I believe Alan Stanton (Zena's partner and ex Councillor) has highlighted this as something called Failure Demand. A hard pressed team fail in their initial service provision and then create more demand for services as a result of their inadequacy/inefficiency/lack of resources, which in turn puts further pressure on their ability to deliver the service! Get it right first time and you give yourself breathing space.
I should also flag that if you have a court summons and have the original emails showing you have attempted to deal with this I would have thought it would be thrown out?
-
-
Thank you for all your replies and help with this. Can I ask when you say 'upstairs at the library' where is this please? It is not possible to get 30 days' respite with Council Tax any more, particularly if it is a second home. Some water companies will allow it though and I recently found out that E.on has a special Landlord tariff whereby no standing charge is paid for the first 30 days a property is empty and they won't keep estimating readings when they are virtually zero for an empty flat.
-
-
I too stumbled across the Landlord site for E.on and tried it out, really useful and a lot simpler although unfortunately there is a limit on the usage.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
