If you're the only person over 18 in your home, you may be entitled to a 25% reduction on your Council Tax.
This discount can only apply to your main home, and not any second homes.
You can apply for a 25% discount if:
- you're the only person over 18 in your home
- you have already registered with us to pay Council Tax
How to apply
To apply for a single person discount, please complete our form. You’ll need to know your Council Tax account number.
For Bournemouth residents:
For Christchurch residents:
For Poole residents:
Backdated claims
It’s the responsibility of the Council Tax payer to apply for a discount or exemption. This gives us the opportunity to verify the claim through an inspection, if necessary.
Unless you can provide a very good reason for failing to apply at the right time and provide documentary evidence to support your claim it may not be backdated.
Because it’s difficult to verify backdated claims, and as you would have received information each year relating to discounts and exemptions, we will not normally consider any backdating of a discount for more than three months.
The types of reasons where we would consider awarding a backdated discount are:
- bereavement in immediate family
- serious accident or illness of Council Tax payer or immediate family
- marital split
This list is not intended to be exhaustive and other valid reasons will be considered.
If you wish to make a substantially backdated claim, the claim should be accompanied by a written explanation of why you failed to apply in a timely manner and any documentary evidence you may have to support your claim.
It is difficult to provide documentary or other evidence that you live alone, but the sort of evidence that might be acceptable would be copies of claims for various state benefits which involve declaring the household status.
Temporary absences of a person because of working away from home or taking extended holidays are not usually sufficient to give rise to a single person discount claim.
In the case of partners, the legal presumption is that even in the case of very long absences because of work, the ‘marital home’ remains the residence for Council Tax purposes. Adult children taking extended holidays are also generally considered to have their main residence at the family home unless their absence is permanent, for example years rather than months.
Discounts and exemptions are regularly reviewed to confirm that the person receiving it remains entitled. If you do receive a review, please respond, as failure to do so may lead to the discount being cancelled and receiving a penalty.
The discount may only be applied at a property that is the sole or main residence of one person. If you have only one address, that is your sole residence. If you have more than one address, please do not complete this form. Contact us so that we can decide your main residence for Council Tax purposes and whether the discount can be applied.
Change in circumstances
If you are already receiving a discount and another adult moves into the household, you must tell us about your change in circumstances within 21 days, clearly stating the date this change took place. If you do not advise us about a change that affects a discount, you may receive an amended bill and a £70 penalty charge.