Joint liability
‘Joint and several liability’ means that, in legal terms, you can be held liable for all of a bill on which you are named, or for a share of it, even though there are other named individuals. It gives the local authority the right to pursue as many, or as few, of the people named on the council tax bill for payment as it wants, regardless of how many liable residents there are, or were, in the property.
1s6 LGFA 1992In practice, local authorities try to bill as many liable people as possible. However, if a local authority cannot contact all the liable people (eg, because someone has moved out of the property and left no contact details), those who it can contact can be required to pay the total amount between them. If a local authority can only contact one person, it can require her/him to pay the whole bill.
Usually, couples who live together are jointly liable for the council tax. Students, however, are exempt from this rule. If you have a non-student partner who is liable for council tax, you are not jointly liable while you are a student.
2ss9 and 77 LGFA 1992