Please be aware that some emails received by residents regarding late payments are not from the council. If you are unsure, you can check your online account, pay online or contact us. Learn more on these types of emails at National Cyber security.

Apply for a single person Council Tax discount

The full Council Tax bill assumes that there are 2 or more adults (i.e. people aged 18 or over) living in a property.

You can get a 25% Single Person Discount if you are the only resident aged 18 or over living in your home and it is your sole or main residence.

This discount does not apply to second homes.

Someone’s sole or main residence is normally deemed to be:

the familial home where any partner or children reside
where the majority of your belongings are
where you would return to at the end of traveling/work contract
where you have legal ties
where you have banking, financial and medical links

This list doesn’t include everything, and we might ask for more details or proof if things aren’t clear.

If someone is living temporarily away from home, this discount will not normally apply. For example, if they are in hospital, in a nursing home, working away or traveling/on holiday/gap year.

Their main residence must have permanently changed before this discount applies.

The exception is for full time students who are studying and living away from home. This is because they qualify for a specific exemption at the address where they are living.

You must remember to cancel your discount if they return to your address at the end of their course.

Apply for a discount

To claim a single person discount you can complete our online form.

Apply now

After you've applied

After you've applied, we will assess your claim and contact you regarding the outcome.You must continue to make payments whilst a discount application is pending.

If your circumstances change

We will regularly check if you still qualify for the Single Person Discount, and you’ll need to confirm that you’re still eligible.

You will need to let us know if your circumstances change and you are no longer the only resident in the household liable to pay Council Tax.

You can do this by cancelling your single person discount.

National Fraud Initiative

We take part in the Cabinet Office’s National Fraud Initiative (NFI), a data matching exercise aimed at preventing and detecting fraud. We are required to submit specified data sets to the Minister for the Cabinet Office for each exercise. During the NFI process, council tax discount claims, such as single occupier discounts, are cross-checked against databases provided to the NFI.