NRTPF and Council Tax Arrears

If someone has NRTPF and not receiving any benefit entitlement and obviously can’t claim any benefit how can the Council chase him for Council Tax Arrears. His only income is a charity payment (less that a UC). He is staying in a property for free but the Council say he’s liable for Council Tax and must pay.  He can’t claim. CTS.
The Council are aware of this but are still say he owes it and needs to pay.. Enforcement Agents have returned the debt to Council as uncollectable

Irrational as it is, it is perfectly lawful for the Council to demand payment.  They could, however, use their Section 13a powers to write some or all of it off if the person has no way to pay.

*Section 13a Local govt Finance Act 1992.

I don’t know if the original poster has access to the Wiser Adviser debt advice forum?  A few months ago when I was still a debt adviser, I posted something there about 13a discretionary council tax relief & NRPF, and it seems that this could be public funds, too. Some LAs refuse to grant s13a relief to NRPF claimants, and someone uploaded a VT decision which found S13a was public funds.  Someone had suggested to make an application to the council to write debt off under some other general power, but can’t remember details.

And you could check if the client is definitely the liable person, if he is not the only resident there may be someone living there who is higher up on the hierarchy level.

There is a risk of confusion here because both means-tested Council Tax Reduction and the discretionary power to reduce any Council Tax bill are governed by s13A of the 1992 Act.  The means-tested CTR scheme - the successor to CTB - is covered by s13A(1)(a), while discretionary reductions are covered by s13A(1)(c).  I have not seen anything in the public funds guidance to make me think that discretionary reduction of a council tax bill would be considered having recourse to public funds.  See for example this document - if you do a word search on “council tax” the only references you will find are clearly describing the means tested CTR scheme.

And the actual legal definition from the Immigration Rules:

(f) a council tax reduction under a council tax reduction scheme made under section 13A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 in relation to England or Wales or a council tax reduction pursuant to the Council Tax Reduction (Scotland) Regulations 2012 or the Council Tax Reduction (State Pension Credit) (Scotland) Regulations 2012;

I do wonder if there is really a compelling case for s13A discretionary reduction (as against pragmatically writing off a debt) in circumstances where the individual doesn’t have any resources at all so won’t be put in any further hardship by the debt until they are able to resolve their immigration/financial position.

That said, I agree with the above that there doesn’t seem to be any reason why a discretionary reduction would be “public funds”.

It may also be worth saying that in many cases people have a habit of using NRPF as a catchall term for people who are unable to claim benefits etc as a result of their immigration situation. It would only be in a case where the person has limited leave to remain subject to a no recourse to public funds condition where the public funds rules would come into play. I suspect that a lot of the time when people are using the term “NRPF” they are referring to people who have no leave to remain at all - for example because they are failed asylum seekers - who are not subject to the public funds rules.

Funny this, had a question many months back and didn’t or couldn’t quite find an answer or be convinced that the ctax reduction under s13A is not public funds.

My problem is that the immigration rules (Below)do not seem to differentiate between the 2? It just says s13A…..unless of course it specifically means and implies s13A @ (s13A(1)(a)), but why not just say date bearing in mind most schemes have both embedded in it (As in you actually do not require an application?).

(f) a council tax reduction under a council tax reduction scheme made under section 13A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 in relation to England or Wales or a council tax reduction pursuant to the Council Tax Reduction (Scotland) Regulations 2012 or the Council Tax Reduction (State Pension Credit) (Scotland) Regulations 2012;

May just be me not seeing the wood for the trees.

Many thanks for the information. Have written to the Council to inform them of the situation.

chacha - 03 February 2021 03:31 PM

Funny this, had a question many months back and didn’t or couldn’t quite find an answer or be convinced that the ctax reduction under s13A is not public funds.

My problem is that the immigration rules (Below)do not seem to differentiate between the 2? It just says s13A…..unless of course it specifically means and implies s13A @ (s13A(1)(a)), but why not just say date bearing in mind most schemes have both embedded in it (As in you actually do not require an application?).

(f) a council tax reduction under a council tax reduction scheme made under section 13A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 in relation to England or Wales or a council tax reduction pursuant to the Council Tax Reduction (Scotland) Regulations 2012 or the Council Tax Reduction (State Pension Credit) (Scotland) Regulations 2012;

May just be me not seeing the wood for the trees.

The bit in bold I think: a one-off discretionary reduction is not done “under a scheme”.  You might have a policy, especially in a two-tier area where the county makes funds available on condition that the districts apply certain criteria, but as a matter of law a discretionary reduction is always a one off and not done under a scheme

It gets a bit confusing when a council say they introduced a ”scheme permitting discretionary reductions of Council Tax under 13A (1) (c) of the Local Government Finance Act”. It’s effectively a defined pot of money which can be applied to individual bills at the council’s discretion. They may make “ongoing adjustments to the scheme in future years”, and have incorporated reference to it directly into their s13A(1)(a) CTRS.

I haven’t dealt with it in the context of public funds, I’m not sure if this is just semantics, and if the council would say it’s more of a policy rather than a scheme.

I agree with Peter. The council can call it a scheme if they want. That still doesn’t make it a “scheme made under section 13A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992”. In fact, that reference IMO is to s.13A(2), not anything in subs. (1).

Yes, s13A(9) makes it pretty clear: “In this Part “council tax reduction scheme” means a scheme under subsection (2) or [the Welsh version thereof].”

And another thing: the reference to CTR schemes was inserted in the Immigration Rules from 1/4/13 (see statement of changes).  Discretionary reductions under s13A had already existed for some time before then - it was only from April 2013 that s13A was amended to enable the replacement of CTB with local CTR schemes.  That is further evidence of a policy intention to keep discretionary reductions out of the definition of public funds for immigration purposes.