Councils can not demand landlords pay council tax on a property if a tenant moves out before the tenancy agreement has expired, a court has ruled.
An Appeal Court judgement, brought by Leeds City Council, agreed that contractual periodic tenancies following a fixed term had the same effect as a fixed term assured shorthold tenancy.
The council had brought the case after a landlord refused to pay the council tax on five properties when the home was empty but the tenancies had not been formally ended.
The council had argued that a single tenancy cannot be both a fixed term and periodic. However the landlord successfully argued that the contract created a single tenancy whose term was six months and thereafter continuing as a monthly tenancy.
David Smith, policy director for the Residential Landlords Association which intervened in the case on behalf of landlords said: ‘The RLA is very pleased with this decision which upholds the basic principles of tenure.’
