Is My Shorthold Tenancy Agreement Invalid?

[Ma79rie]

On discovering my landlord had not paid the council tax he had "collected" from me for many years,I went to see the local council tax office.
It transpired that the property I have lived in for 10 years (with bona fida deposit ,STA) was only given permission to be a holiday rental. There are 5 similar properties where I live.
The council have on record an investigation for similar breech on the properties in 2000 but the investigating planning enforcement officer had failed to complete his enquiry.
Does this mean that my tenancy agreement is invalid?
Advice on this would be greatly received.

[EDDIE51]

Yes PP, that's why I said the landlord has more of a problem than the tenant has!

[twix123]

Not being a legal expert, I would have thought that the council should have realised that the property was not a holiday let if the OP has been on the voting register for the last 10 years at this address, unless the forms weren't being completed/submitted.

[EDDIE51]

You can be registered to vote at a 'holiday let' if it is the place where you live the majority of the time. In any case I don't think the section of the council that handles council tax talks to the section that does the voters register.

[Ma79rie]

Thank you for your comments and advice.
In answer to your query about our CT - yes we have proof of payment. 10 years of bank transfers.
We realise the council require outstanding CT to be paid. But we have not been the only ASTs in this property yet until this week it had never been registered as domestic acommodation It similarly transpires that the other properties hadn't always been registered for paying CT although they have all had AST consistently in the last 10 years.
We believe a previous tenant to ourselves was a very high ranking civil servant. Will they ask him for outstanding CT. We suspect he too will have paid the CT to the landlord as we did.

[EDDIE51]

Will be interesting to see what happens , please let us know what the council decide over repayments. The fact that as you say in the first question, the planning enforcement officer failed to complete the investigation, could put some pressure on the council to accept less than the full amount due.

[Peter Pedant]

six years probably is the stature of limitations

you obviously have a claim against the landlord for the balance - up to the time that you stopped 'paying' thro' him
thro either misrepresentation, fraud or breach of trust BUT
you probably wont be able to short circuit it by telling the council - go after him.

what you might also say to the council
is that they had notice in 2000 - and so you arent liable for the consequences of their negligence.

I would NOT get lawyers involved until the position is clearer
( coz they charge £200/h to wait and see )

[Peter Pedant]

// let us know what the council decide over the repayments //

No Ed these are not repayments....

they are payments to make up for the forseeable consequences of the council's negligence combined with the breach of trust of the Landlord ( he received money to pay CT and didnt )

so keep us informed

[Dogsbody2]

I don't have anything to add regarding what PP has said about statute of limitations and the other advice he gave at 07.49hrs. Legal info on here runs a lot less than £200/hr.

The other suggestion I could make at this time involves researching for yourself the ratings history for your property. It might help you when it comes to understanding the history of how it got to the present muddle. Property rating is the business of the Valuations Office Agency (VOA) in England & Wales, and it (should) work in close partnership with the local authority. It is the VOA that decides what council tax band, or what RV (for non-domestic rates on commercial property) is applied. They get tipped off by the local authority when (for example) someone improves their property by planning development, or when a property changes from being a commercial to a domestic property. It is this facet you might want to check out, because it may give a clue about what has (or hasn't) happened. If the original property was a farm, I would expect the VOA to record that as a 'mixed use' or 'composite' property. What this means is that it has both domestic (payment of CT) and commercial (payment of non-domestic rates) obligations. A holiday let is a bit of a strange one. It is regarded as a commercial property if let on several short-term lets totalling more than 140 days per year. Less than this and it should have a domestic (CT only) liability. It is imcumbent on the owner to advise if a long-term tenancy (as you have) is established, whence CT only is payable. It is perfectly possible that a holiday let CAN be let as an AST for an extended period of years, provided it is permitted within the planning consent conditions granted. Different councils appear to have different rules on this.

The CT (domestic) part of the VOA website is accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands
(it is accessed from the central government gov.uk website family)
You input your postcode, and it will show all the domestic properties in that code and their current band. Click on a property and it shows the single property, from which you can see if it is 'mixed' use, and access the history of the property back from when CT started (remember the poll tax fiasco before it?).

Non-domestic rates enquiries on the VOA website work in the similar way but the starting point is here:
https://www.gov.uk/correct-your-business-rates
It accesses another database within the VOA portal. Again the starting point is the postcode. The output is presented as an RV, and again you have access to the complete history - certainly back to pre-2000.

A mixed use property will have entries in both sections of the website.

Why am I suggesting this work? Because forewarned is fore-armed. In theory the local authority has this historical record also (each authority in their finance section accesses and maintains data from the VOA to be able to collect business rates and council tax) but as was discussed earlier, its better to sit tight and see what the CT collection people come back with regarding your unfortunate situation. DB

[Ma79rie]

Thank you for all your comments.
DB - I have done as you suggested, this property is not listed for CT. It never has been. The landlord received small business rate of 0 from 2010.
I now have a copy of the planning permission for holiday lets only and not to exceed 3 months to 1 renter.
I am led to believe these properties were renovated ( a very loose term) by means of a grant. This grant was for making redundant farm buildings into agro tourism - not to develop your residental portfolio! There must be a way of looking for this.

[Dogsbody2]

There are many sources of grants - some DEFRA / EU inspired, but many from private charitable groups. Here's but one (public sector) example designed to help farmers utilise old rural buildings for non-farm / diversification purposes.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/diversifying-farming-businesses

Not sure how that helps you though.

[Ma79rie]

Hi DG
My reasoning being that there may have been a stipulation that the development must be kept as holiday lets - maybe a penalty clause in there too.
Certainly the local council planning stated it was to be for holiday lets.
You asked what I wanted out of this. I want this settled. To continue living here.