CT CH 4148 2012
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Judge C. Turnbull |
| Judgment Date | 04 December 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | 2013 UKUT 617 AAC |
| Subject Matter | Housing and council tax benefits |
| Respondent | Horsham District Council (HB) |
| Court | Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) |
| Docket Number | CH 4148 2012 |
| Appellant | CT |
IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL Case No. CH/4148/2012
ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS CHAMBER
1. I refer to my decision in this case dated 2 October 2013, which in respect of council tax benefit was only an interim decision in that I set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision of 8 May 2012 as wrong in law, but postponed deciding how to re-make the First-tier Tribunal’s decision pending further written submissions from the parties. The Council has made a further written submission. The Claimant has also made a further submission, but it is largely directed to the housing benefit issues, which I have already decided. For the reasons explained below I re-make the First-tier Tribunal’s decision in respect of council tax benefit as follows:
The Claimant’s appeal against the Council’s decision of 18 August 2010 in respect of council tax benefit is allowed. The Claimant was not liable for council tax in respect of the alleged excess benefit period (4 August 2008 to 1 February 2010) and was not therefore in receipt of excess benefit in respect of that period.
2. The Council submits that, contrary to the provisional view which I expressed in para. 22 of my decision of 2 October 2013, the Claimant remained liable for council tax after she ceased actually to live in no. 14, because, under the hierarchy for liability for council tax set out in s.6(2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, she was the “owner of the dwelling” within s.6(2)(f). Under para. 6(5) a person is the “owner” if (a) “he has a material interest in the whole or any part of the dwelling; and (b) at least part of the dwelling …… is not subject to a material interest inferior to his interest.” By s.6(6) “material interest” is defined as “a freehold interest or a leasehold interest which was granted for a term of six months or more.”
3. The Claimant had been a tenant of the property since 1997, and it appears from p. 28 of the papers that by at any rate February 2008 her tenancy had become an assured periodic tenancy. That is what one would have expected: the tenancy originally granted in 1997 is likely to have been either a periodic one or a tenancy for a fairly short fixed term. I will assume in favour of the Council that (as I think is more likely) the initial term was a fixed term of at least six months. On the termination of that fixed term the landlord was deemed to grant a periodic tenancy to the Claimant: see section 5 of the Housing Act 1988. That periodic tenancy will have remained an assured tenancy until the Claimant ceased to occupy no. 14 as her only or principal home (see s.1(1) of the 1988 Act).
4. The Council contends, in reliance on the decision of a Valuation Tribunal in the case of Oyston v Leeds City Council (27 July 2011), that the interest which the Claimant had under her periodic tenancy was a...
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