We have had a few calls in recent days from people who are not getting the reports they want about long-term empties from council tax systems. This follows on from newly-implemented changes in discounts and exemptions. Successor codes to Council tax exemption code "C" for example may only last for 1 month: properties then appear to be flagged as long-term empties after that first month. Some practitoners have expressed concern that this might affect New Homes Bonus.
Firstly, reassurance about the New Homes Bonus. This was addressed in Council Tax Information Letter 2/2012 sent to council tax chiefs last summer which said:
This change will not affect the basis of calculation of the New Homes Bonus, which uses a six-month threshold to distinguish between short-term and long-term empty properties. Local authorities will need to ensure that they have the necessary internal procedures in place in order to continue tocollect the data necessary for those calculations, and the Government will expect any local authority exercising such flexibilities to continue to collate accurate statistics to assist the New Homes Bonus allocations.
To find out whether council tax departments currently do have the capability to produce the necessary reports, we contacted Capita which supplies the widely-used Academy software for council tax systems. Kirsty Sewter, Senior media relations manager for Capita, responded:
“The tools are available to provide information about empty homes via Capita’s software, however it is each council’s responsibility to amend the search terms for reporting purposes in accordance with the revised terminology used in the Council Tax Technical reform legislation. ‘Exemption Class C’, for example, no longer exists as a term in the new legislation.”
This seems to suggest that it is just a question of using the built-in reporting features and changing the parameters. Of course Academy is not the only software out there, but in this case it seems that the necessary tweaks will need to be done by each local authority.