Rateable occupation - council taxpayer owning cottage and living in house provided by employer - cottage not 'sole or main residence' so entitled to council tax discount

R (Williams) v Horsham District Council: CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Master of the Rolls, Lords Justice Buxton and Keene): 21 January 2004

The taxpayer owned a cottage.

Between 1993 and 1996, he was employed as a housemaster at a college which provided him with a house in which he lived with his wife.

Although the two properties were in the same area, the taxpayer did not stay in the cottage, even in the holidays.

Following retirement in 1996, he continued to occupy the college house, with permission and at his own expense, for almost a year; thereafter he lived in the cottage.

The council sought to levy council tax on the cottage at the full rate from 1993 onwards.

On the taxpayer's appeal, the tribunal held that the cottage, not the college house, had throughout been the taxpayer's sole or main residence and so full council tax was payable.

The judge granted the taxpayer's claim for judicial review.

The council appealed.

Jonathan Easton (instructed by the Head of Legal Services, Horsham District Council, Horsham) for the council; the taxpayer in person.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that to determine whether a property constituted a council taxpayer's sole or main residence in order to ascertain whether he was entitled to a discount on his council tax payments in respect of it, 'residence' meant the place where the taxpayer actually resided; that a main residence would be the dwelling which a reasonable onlooker with knowledge of the material facts would regard as that person's home at the material time; and that, where a taxpayer owned a dwelling but did not live in it, he was not a resident in it for the purposes of section 6 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and was accordingly entitled to a discount in respect of it under section 11 of the Act.