Polltax

[fife]

Right, here goes...

I've been staying with my girlfriend for the last 3 yearsin a flat where she has been claiming her single person rebate. For the previous 3 years I was staying at 2 different addresses with a friend who was also claiming their single person rebate. All adresses are in Scotland.

I now need to get this cleared up as we wish to get married and buy a new house etc. My partner is now panicking about the situation as you can imagine.

I need to know the best and most painless way to go about getting myself paying and sorting it all out.

I have a friend who is happy for me to say that I was living therewith his family, but I have no proof of address there and was getting mail sent to my previous addresses. Do they need proof of address?

If I have to bite the bullet and pay then so be it, but i don't want to drop other people in it who have been kind enough tolet me stay.

Any advice on how to resolve the above would be hugely appreciated..

Thank you

[Stinky]

3 years and your missus has been keeping her discount the whole time? Naughty naughty!!

I work in a local council tax office and personally if someone were to phone me and say they'd got married and just moved in with their partner then I would just accept whatever date they told me they'd moved in. From my experience the majority of officers won't tend to ask a person who is phoning to register to prove where they were living before.

The only time they might ask you to prove where you were living before is if something came to their attention that suggested you had been living there for the last 3 years, for example if they checked the electoral records and you had been registered to vote at the property during this time.

Generally if they did ask you to prove where you lived for whatever reason, then they would normally want a tenancy agreement or council tax bill. If you are unable to provide these then they would at least want to see utility bills or bank statements showing the address dated during the period. They may consider a letter from your friend advising you were living at that address, but they probably wouldn't accept it as proof if they had evidence suggesting you were living with your partner.

Unfortunately if your friend says you were living with him or you produce anything showing the address your mail was being sent to then that would probably have unwanted consequences for your friends if they were also getting a discount as councils have a tendancy to speak to each other if they think something's amiss and your friends might end up losing their discount, which I doubt would make you very popular!

If I were you I'd tell the council you'd just moved in and hopefully they shouldn't ask too many questions. If they do suspect you've been living there for a while for whatever reason then it's unlikely you'll get away with it so I'd just come clear and pay back the discount for the last 3 years.