A council tax bill addressed to "the occupiers" has arrived at your shared house, or your landlord has started adding council tax to the rent. HMO council tax in England changed on 1 December 2023, and who pays now turns on how your house is let.
If you rent a room on your own tenancy, your landlord should be paying. If you and your housemates signed one joint tenancy for the whole house, the law is unsettled and you may be billed.
Does the tenant or the landlord pay council tax in England?
Who pays council tax when you're renting is set by section 6 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. It sets out a ladder, and the council bills whoever sits highest. Adults living there as their main home come first, so in an ordinary let the tenants pay. The owner pays only when no adult lives there as their main home, and while an assured tenancy is still running, the "owner" of an empty home is the tenant, not the landlord.
Where two or more residents share the top rung, as joint tenants do, section 6(3) makes them jointly and severally liable. Put simply, the council can chase any one of you for the whole bill.
A live-in landlord sits at the top of that ladder, so lodgers are a separate question, covered in our guide to whether you're a lodger or a tenant. And under section 8, some classes of property skip the ladder and the owner pays instead. Shared houses are one of them.
Do HMO tenants pay council tax?
Usually not. Since 1 December 2023, the council bills the owner of a house in multiple occupation, not the people living in it, and the HMO gets one band and one bill. The 2023 regulations did this by putting HMOs, as section 254 of the Housing Act 2004 defines them with two adjustments below, in Class C. The main change was for houses that had been billed to their residents, such as two sharers or a whole house on one tenancy.
A house is usually an HMO if people from more than one household live there as their main home, at least one pays rent, and they share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. A household is one person, or a couple or relatives.
The council tax test is wider than the licensing one. The 2023 rules switch off the Housing Act's usual exemptions, including the one for a building occupied by only two people from two households. So two unrelated friends sharing a kitchen can be in an HMO for council tax even though their landlord needs no HMO licence. Converted blocks of self-contained flats are left out, and those flats keep their own bands.
Wales changed its own rules separately from 3 June 2026, so this guide covers England only.
When the landlord pays council tax on an HMO
If you rent a room on your own tenancy or licence, paying rent for that room, the council should bill your landlord.
Write to the council if it has billed you personally. Say the house is an HMO let room by room, and give your move-in date, the number of households and the rooms you share. Under section 16, the council must consider your letter, and you can appeal if it refuses or has not replied within 2 months. If your room still has its own council tax band, the Valuation Office may need to put the house in one band first.
Who pays council tax on a joint tenancy?
If you and your housemates signed one tenancy for the whole house, there are two readings, and nobody has settled which is right.
The first follows the wording. For Class C, regulation 2A defines the "owner" as the person holding the most junior freehold or leasehold interest in the whole dwelling. Joint tenants of the whole house hold exactly that, so on this reading you are the "owner" and the bill is yours. The Valuation Tribunal Service's non-binding guidance manual states the general Class C rule the same way, though it does not deal with joint tenancies.
The second follows the government's stated aim. The Explanatory Memorandum to SI 2023/1175 says "the liability will rest with the landlord", and Council Tax Information Letter 3/2023 tells councils that liability "rests with the landlords of HMOs". Neither mentions joint tenancies or regulation 2A.
We have found no Valuation Tribunal or court decision since December 2023 that decides between them, and councils' published guidance does not deal with it consistently.
Check whose name is on the bill. If it is yours and you think the landlord should pay, write to the council explaining why. If it says no, or does not reply within 2 months, appeal free to the Valuation Tribunal. The deadline is 2 months from the council's decision, or 4 months from your letter if it never replied.
Where joint tenants are billed, as residents or as the "owner", sections 6(3) and 8(4) make each of you liable for the whole amount, unless some of you are full-time students.
Can a landlord charge council tax on top of rent?
Your tenancy can make you responsible for paying the council's bill. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 lists "a payment to a billing authority in respect of council tax" as a permitted payment in Schedule 1, paragraph 8, which is why our guide to banned tenant fees puts council tax on the allowed list. What a tenancy cannot do is change who the council bills.
The permitted payment is one made to the council. A separate council tax charge paid to the landlord on top of rent is not on the list in those words. The government's statutory guidance says landlords and agents "cannot require a tenant to pay a separate, additional charge to them for council tax". Especially where your landlord is the one liable, an itemised charge like that may be challengeable as a prohibited payment. If it is one, section 15 lets you apply to the First-tier Tribunal to get it back.
"Bills included" rent is different. One all-in rent that happens to cover council tax is rent, and the fee rules leave it alone. Energy charges have their own rule, covered in our guide to landlords overcharging for electricity or gas.
Do you pay council tax if you share with students?
A home where every resident is a full-time student is exempt, whoever would otherwise be billed. That covers a room-by-room student HMO as much as a joint tenancy, so neither you nor your landlord should pay. If you do get a bill, GOV.UK says you can apply to the council for the exemption.
In mixed houses, full-time students are "disregarded" when the council counts adults. Where tenants are billed, as residents or as the "owner", a student who shares liability with non-students drops out of it under section 6(4) and section 8(5), so the non-students carry the bill. If only one adult in the house is not disregarded, the bill gets a 25% single person discount under section 11.
In an HMO where the landlord pays, those discounts cut the landlord's bill, not yours.
If you can't tell whether your house counts as an HMO, or your landlord has added council tax to the rent, Remedy can read your tenancy, help you work out who the council should be billing, and draft the letter to the council or your landlord.
