Who pays Council Tax
Council Tax is paid by every person who lives in or owns a property and goes towards the cost of services provided by the Council, the Police and Fire Services and your local Parish or Town Council.
Where to get help
- Online: contact us form
- Email: counciltax@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk
- Telephone: 0300 123 7022
- Find your balance
- Make a payment
- Register to access your Council Tax account online
Payment dates
You can pay your Council Tax upon receipt of the annual bill, or you have the choice of paying in two half yearly instalments or 10 monthly instalments. If you elect to pay in two half yearly instalments, your first instalment is due on 1 April, and the second instalment on 1 October. Payment for 10 monthly instalments is due on the 2nd of the month.
You are responsible for paying if whoever comes first on the list below will be the person who has to pay the Council Tax for the property:
- Residents who have a freehold interest in the property
- Residents who have a leasehold interest in the property
- Residents who are statutory or secure tenant in the property
- Residents who have a contractual licence to occupy the property
- Other residents
- Non-resident owners
A resident is a person of 18 years or over who lives in the dwelling as their only or main home.
Note: husbands and wives, partners and joint owners are liable to pay Council Tax. The bill will show all the names, although only one bill may be sent.
Special cases where the owner should pay
In some special cases the owner, not the residents, has to pay the council tax. These are:
- dwellings occupied by more than one household, where the residents pay rent separately for different parts of the dwelling and where the households perhaps share cooking or washing facilities, for example, some hostels, nurses’ homes or groups of bed-sits;
- residential care homes, nursing homes (such as hospices), mental nursing homes or certain types of hostel providing a high level of care;
- religious communities such as monasteries or convents;
- dwellings which are not the owner’s main home, but which are the main home of someone whom the owner employs in domestic service;
- vicarages and other dwellings where a minister of religion lives and works. (Where the owner-occupier is a Church of England minister of religion, the Church is responsible for the bill.)
- accommodations provided to asylum seekers under Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
If you live in such a dwelling, where the owner is liable, you do not have to pay council tax. If your landlord is the liable person, they might be able to ask you to pay something towards the bill, depending on the terms of your agreement with them.
Prevention and detection of fraud
The Council is required under section 6 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 to participate in the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercise.
Council Tax data will be provided to the Audit Commission for NFI and will be used for cross-system comparison for the prevention and detection of fraud.
Further information
Find out more about your council tax bill: