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Request

Subject: Student Liability

Reference: LBR-FOI-00405

Following the theme of this FOI request: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whatdotheyknow.com%2Frequest%2Fstudent_council_tax_letters%23outgoing-1389314&data=05%7C01%7CFOIR%40richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk%7C44c7486a97ef4009cafe08daf4359454%7Cd9d3f5acf80349be949f14a7074d74a7%7C0%7C0%7C638090808214902769%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=RzW4O0L9nN%2F4UAYO70sEBEVk07JO9gPzji0Zw7Rd5is%3D&reserved=0

In every academic year, St Mary's University student's final exam is in May.

Landlords renting to students (who are class N exempt for council tax) generally subject students to 12-month tenancy agreements starting in September and finishing in August (the academic year according to the gov't) https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fguidance%2Funderstanding-academic-years&data=05%7C01%7CFOIR%40richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk%7C44c7486a97ef4009cafe08daf4359454%7Cd9d3f5acf80349be949f14a7074d74a7%7C0%7C0%7C638090808214902769%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=5Z9hOvMzHqB2Cnv3CS0CJrE4n19MJUfb6j7uiqXV19I%3D&reserved=0).

In fact, this is known to Richmond Council in at least one case in 2019. and 2020

Can you please tell me; in total, how many of these students in 12-month tenancy agreements and where their final exam is in May 2019 and 2020 have Richmond Council claimed are liable for council tax, and how many of these students have you collected council tax from between May 2019 to August 2019 and May 2020 to August 2020?

Response

None Disclosed - 9 February 2023

To provide the answer to this request, Richmond Council sought firstly to identify how many properties had a student council tax exemption which ended in either May 2019 or May 2020 and the answer was 772 in total.

The next step would be to ascertain whether the students in those properties were from St Mary's University, why the exemption had been ended and whether the students remained at the property beyond the end of the exemption, therefore attracting a council tax charge. However, this would require each relevant council tax account to be found on our database and document records checked for each.

We are unable to provide this information as we consider the cost to do so would exceed the FOI appropriate limit, as specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004; therefore section 12(1) of the Act applies.

The appropriate limit has been set at £450 and may include working hours of any person acting on our behalf at a rate of £25 per hour. This equates to 18 hours to locate and extract the relevant information.

To extract the relevant information for this request would take approximately 129 hours:

Time to run report to extract the 772 council tax accounts where a student exemption ended in either May 2019 or May 2020 = 1/2 hour

Time to check each account and look in document records to establish place of study for each student occupier of those accounts AND the nature and duration of their tenure of the property (if even held) = 772 x 10 mins = 7,720 mins = 129 hours

Please note that our responses were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of release, and have not subsequently been updated. This information should be considered an historical record only.