UK Landlord Forum / Life

First post, please go easy

We live in the Midlands and purchased a BTL property in Middlesbrough due to affordability. The sale went through on the 1st Dec 2024 and we contacted the council about this and expected a bill to come through. In the meantime, the letting agents secured a tennenat that we were ok with and he moved in on the 28th Feb 2025.

Fast forward this week, the tenants contact us to let us know that they forwarded a letter to us. We received a letter today and it appears that the bailiffs want to recover £950 due to council tax arrears. Naturally, we were suprised and dismayed as we have never been in debt (apart from a mortgage) and pride ourselves for always paying bills on time. Admittedly, i had not chased the CT in the interim period between the purchase and the tenant moving in, but even so, i dont why we were not contacted by letter to my home address.

My wife will call the council tomorrow but if you have any peals of wisdom to share, please do, we would be very grateful. thanks 

You're required to pay the council tax you're liable for, whether or not you receive a bill. The problem should also have come to light when the council were told the tenants' details in February.

Middlesbrough have an online service so you can manage all of this remotely.

If bailiffs are involved, there have been at least one reminder and a court case. If it's not actually bailiffs, just a debt collection agent, this might be the reminder.


I'm not really sure how it's possible to "go easy". The number of things a landlord has to do isn't very high and you just didn't do one of the important ones.

Either you or the agents should have informed the council of the date when the tenant moved in and became responsible,  and your address to be billed for the 3 months or so the place was void.

I am not sure why you are surprised, you must have known this would catch up with you.  If you pay promptly there is no reason your credit rating should be affected. If these tenants move out it is your responsibility to inform the council, and they will bill you again for the void period.

Thank you all for your replies- we called the council and thankfully, they were very understanding and agreed that we could make the 3 month payment and that would be the end of the matter. lesson learned.