Hi all,
Can anyone help?
As a PPMS sufferer living in Medway. Am I entitled to council tax reduction?
If so, how do I apply. On line or what forms do I need to get from council?
Do Medway council back date it?
Thank you for all your help and support.
kind regards
Tony
There’s three ways of reducing your Council Tax. The first is to get a 25% reduction if you live alone, but I’d assume you’ve already got that covered. If not, contact your Council. The second is Council Tax Benefit, which is an income related benefit. If you are either working or not, living on a low income and have less than £16,000 in savings, you may qualify. Contact your Council for help with this. The last is a discount known as disability related reduction. You can qualify for this if you have to have a separate room in your house because of your disability. This could be for example, that you need a special kind of bed which you can’t get into the bedroom you’d normally share with your partner. Or you’ve had to turn a downstairs room into a second bathroom or extra bedroom because you can’t get up the stairs. Or because you use a wheelchair inside the house. The expectation is that using a wheelchair indoors means you need extra room. You don’t have to have made any specific changes to your house to qualify, the only stipulation is that you use a wheelchair indoors. The reduction in such cases is to downgrade your Council Tax bill to the next band down. So for example, your house is charged as Band C, it will go down to Band B for billing purposes. If you are already on Band A, your reduction will be equal to 1/6 of the charge. I get the disabled related reduction because I use a wheelchair indoors. Sue
hiya
marin lewis mentioned re c/tax in his prog on mon night!
i dont understand re viewing now but someone can/will!
ellie
I get the wheelchair reduction for my home. the guy came and measured up and said i was able to get it, i think it applies to any council.
When the man from the council came to check that I qualify for the disabled reduction, he didn’t do any kind of measuring to see what, if any, adaptations I’d made. He just saw that I was using a wheelchair, ticked a box and away he went. I just have to fill in a form every so often to confirm that I still qualify.
And the disabled reduction does apply to every council in England at least. There may be some differences in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but chances are they’d be more generous, not less!!
Sue
I applied for the rebate with Swansea council and it was all done over the phone, no home visit, just had to send off proof of disability, such as a letter confirming the MS from the hospital. My council band was dropped by 1 level, not a lot but every bit helps !