You’ll usually have to pay council tax if you’re 18 or over and own or rent a home. Spouses and partners who live together are both responsible for paying the bill. The responsibility for paying council tax applies in the following order:

• owner who lives in the property
  
• tenant who lives in the property
  
• sub-tenant who lives in the property
  
• someone else who lives in the property
  
• the owner if nobody lives in the property
  

The following people are responsible for paying the council tax bill:

• married couples
  
• couples who live together as if married
  
• people in a civil partnership
  
• joint owners
  
• joint tenants
  

We can choose to collect the full amount of the council tax bill from anyone who is legally responsible for it. It is then up to that person to get any monies back from the other parties.

Where individuals are either jointly and severally liable for a debt or have a sole debt we may, where necessary, discuss details of any prior debt with your current partner. If you do not wish us to discuss your outstanding previous sole debt with your new joint partner, you can request that we do not share this information by emailing benctax@fife.gov.uk

Where there is a legitimate reason, we may still need to share this information.

In certain circumstances, we will charge the owner for the council tax. They do not need to be living in the property themselves. This includes properties shared by:

• many different households (known as a 'house in multiple occupation')
  
• properties used only by religious communities.