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Originally posted by moatmeister
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Please accept a virtual pint. Cheers! 
However we are talking about council tax arrears of around £4500 plus charging order cost of approx £500. Whilst I fully accept I owe the basic arrears of around £3k, the only other fly in the ointment is that it includes a 50% empty property surcharge ie about £1500, which in my eyes would be much better spent on repairing the house than lining the council's pocket, to the benefit of everybody. My understanding of this is that it is not a legal requirement for councils to charge this, but they are able to if they want, ie it is optional for them.
Is that correct and do you know of any cases where that has been successfully challenged?
However we are talking about council tax arrears of around £4500 plus charging order cost of approx £500. Whilst I fully accept I owe the basic arrears of around £3k, the only other fly in the ointment is that it includes a 50% empty property surcharge ie about £1500, which in my eyes would be much better spent on repairing the house than lining the council's pocket, to the benefit of everybody. My understanding of this is that it is not a legal requirement for councils to charge this, but they are able to if they want, ie it is optional for them.
Is that correct and do you know of any cases where that has been successfully challenged?
To determine if the premium is correct it requires a look at the circumstances over the long term - sometimes something that can be challenged comes up, sometimes it doesn't but I've not seen one, or heard of one, being challenged to the High Court on the grounds of whether the council could legally apply the rate they set or not under s11B - the council have to apply the premium under legislation,it's generally accepted that they could however set the premium rate to 0% (although a strict reading of the legislation suggests that an increase, however small, has to be applied to meet the wording). There is the odd case that raises the point as part of a valuation tribunal but where they do that the particular point has to be dismissed as it's not in the tribunal's remit.
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