20 or over in non-advanced or higher education
You are regarded as a ’student’ for council tax purposes if the course requires you to undertake periods of study, tuition or work experience for at least 21 hours a week in at least 24 weeks each academic year.
1Sch 1 para 4(1) CT(DD)OIf you are on a sandwich course, required periods of work experience are included.
To count as a student, you must be enrolled on a course with an educational institution. You are a student from the day you begin the course until the day you complete it, abandon it or are no longer permitted by the educational institution to undertake it.
2Sch 1 para 3 CT(DD)O So if you take time out and are not enrolled on the course during that period, you do not count as a student for council tax purposes. If this means you become liable for council tax, check whether you can get council tax reduction (see
here).
If you take time out but are still enrolled on the course, you continue to count as a student, provided you have not abandoned it completely and the institution has not said you can no longer undertake the course. Because the law says you are not a student if you are ’no longer permitted by the institution to undertake [the course]’, it suggests that your dismissal from the course must be final. So you could argue that if you are temporarily suspended from the course but still registered, you still count as a student. In an informal letter, written in 1996, the former Department of the Environment (then responsible for council tax) stated:
3Council tax information letter 5, 29 April 1996In our view a period of intercalation will remain within the period of a course… and therefore, provided that the person remains enrolled at the education establishment, they will continue to fall within the definition of a full-time student.
Note: a valuation tribunal decision indicates that students who are repeating a full-time course on a part-time basis may not be regarded as meeting the definition of ‘full-time student’, even if their normal attendance is on a full-time basis.
4Valuation Tribunal for England appeals 1765M88934/176C and 1765M88933/176C It is therefore important to ensure that your institution is clear about the normal expectations of your course in any documentation it provides.
Your college or university determines the number of hours of your course. You may need evidence from it to prove to the local authority that you count as a student. Colleges and universities are required by law to provide you with a certificate, if you ask for one while you are a student or for up to a year after you leave the course.
5Sch 1 para 5 LGFA 1992 After that, they may still give you a certificate, but are not legally required to do so. The certificate must contain:
6Art 5 CT(DD)O•the name and address of the institution;
•your full name;
•your term-time address and home address (if known by the institution);
•a statement that you are (or were) a student – ie, that you are (or were) enrolled on a course requiring you to undertake periods of study, tuition or work experience of at least 21 hours a week over at least 24 weeks a year; and
•the date you became a student and the date your course ends.
Note: the rapid change in the way that higher education courses are delivered and structured may not be reflected in council tax legislation, and so certain courses may not meet the definition of ‘full time’. For example, condensed courses which do not last a full academic year do not exempt you from council tax, even if the number of hours you attend a week is much higher to reflect the shorter length of the programme.
7Wirral Borough Council v Farthing [2008] EWHC 1919 (Ch)