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Council Tax 'Rip-Off' For Care Home Residents After Executive Blunder
Eddie Barnes, Scotsman.com
Scotland
August 7, 2005
Elderly residents of care homes across Scotland are being forced to pay more than £1,000 a year in council tax for their individual rooms following a blunder by ministers.
New housing laws introduced by the Scottish Executive have inadvertently defined hundreds of OAPs in nursing homes as tenants, thereby casting them into the council tax net.
Thus, despite having only private accommodation consisting of a room and a bathroom, they are receiving bills from councils demanding full rates.
Elderly people in private care homes in Lanarkshire and Inverclyde are known to have been hit by tax bills, but Executive officials admitted last night that OAPs across Scotland may be affected by the law change.
Charities for the elderly described the situation as "outrageous" and are now demanding that ministers quickly change the law.
The charges came to light after protests launched by residents of the Abbeyfield care homes in Lanarkshire, who began receiving council tax bills at the beginning of this year.
Michael White, chief executive of Abbeyfield Homes Scotland, said: "It is absolutely crazy. They are all living under one roof and there is no way that their rooms could be classified as a house.
"They all use the same water supply and there is one collection of rubbish. Yet we were told that if a room has a TV and it is a locked room then it can be classified as a house."
As a result, the 10 residents at one of the homes in Airdrie were charged a rate of £93 a month for their room.
The bills were charged following a decision by the local assessor that the elderly people were liable for rates.
It followed the Regulation of Care Act in 2001, which led to some private care homes being redefined as Registered Single Landlords, meaning that their residents were reclassified as tenants. As a result, they were liable for council tax.
A spokesperson for Lanarkshire Valuation Joint Board explained: "The Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 resulted in a change in the definition of dwelling for assessing council tax for residential homes. As a result of the changes in this legislation, the assessor decided the Abbeyfield homes should appear in the council tax list."
One source at North Lanarkshire Council said: "The assessor decided, rather than charging the homes, to charge each room council tax. So we being a good council just collected the money as instructed by the assessor."
The changes have affected homes across the Lanarkshire region and have also been carried out by assessors in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.
A spokesman for Inverclyde Council said: "Following a decision by the assessor, each individual room within a care home is now on the council tax system and we are required to bill the occupant."
Government officials now believe that many other care homes across Scotland have also been affected.
They admitted last night that the change had been an error.
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said: "When the care legislation was brought in in 2001 it inadvertently changed the status of people living in care homes so that they fell out of the safety net and fell into council tax rules."
Charities representing the elderly last night said they were astounded by the charges.
A spokeswoman for Age Concern Scotland said: "This is outrageous. Elderly people are already having to pay a massive amount in care homes without having to pay council tax on top of it. This needs to be looked at urgently."
Airdrie MSP Karen Whitefield has now taken up the issue with ministers. "I am very concerned that elderly people are facing council tax bills and I would hope that the Scottish Executive would act swiftly to address these concerns," she said.
Finance minister Tom McCabe has now launched a consultation, promising to review the changes to the law as soon as possible.
However, the care homes have been further enraged by a warning from ministers that even if the rule is changed again, the elderly people who have been wrongly paying council tax will not be able to claim the money back.
In a reply to a parliamentary question which was posed by MSP Karen Whitefield, deputy finance minister George Lyon declared: "Local authorities have no powers to backdate council tax discount entitlement retrospectively."
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