e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@paullewis.co.ukSeveral readers have recently drawn my attention to one advantage of being single – you pay less council tax. Where only one person lives in a property then the full council tax is cut by 25% – and with the tax now £1000 a year for many people, that is nearly a fiver a week saved. Many people will automatically get this reduction. But if you have recently started living alone you should let your council know and ask for the reduction. You may have to fill in a form, but the you can get the discount backdated for as long as you have been living by yourself – there is no time limit on backdating. Even some people who do not live alone can get this reduction because some people are ‘invisible’ as far as council tax is concerned. They include anyone under 18, people older than that who are students, and some people who are carers – the rules about carers are particularly complicated and it is worth checking with the council if you think that someone living with you should be ‘invisible’ for that reason. This 25% discount is given to everyone who lives alone – it does NOT depend on your income or savings.
However, Joan writes from Dorset to point out a problem of being alone and trying to claim a further reduction in her council tax on grounds of her low income. She had read my piece Claim Cash (Saga Magazine June 2001) where I explained that people with a low income and savings under £16,000 could get their council tax reduced. "As my income was under £173 and my council tax was £922 I thought was in with a chance of saving a pound or two a week. However, on filling out the form and being assessed I was granted the enormous sum of 11p a week!" Joan had discovered that when the council works out your council tax benefit it uses the figure for the council tax you actually pay – in Joan’s case after the single person’s discount. So her reduction was less than she expected. But anyone with an income under £200 a week and savings under £16,000 should apply for council tax benefit. You may not get it with an income that high, but you might so it is well worth applying for. Margaret for example wrote to me from Staffordshire to say she had got her council tax reduced from £82 a month to £47 "I am most grateful for the information in Saga Magazine as without it I would not have known I was entitled"
One final point on council tax – if you have a second property then the council tax is normally cut by 50% (though for the first six months a property is empty the council tax is reduced to zero). But in some parts of Wales the reduction is not applied for second homes.
And on the subject of empty property someone I will call simply ‘J’ from Leeds wrote to ask about a television licence. She has a holiday flat and was annoyed that she was sent a demand to pay £109 for a colour television licence. "I wrote a polite letter stating that I would not be renewing my licence this year as the address was a holiday flat and the TV was not being used sufficiently to warrant a licence."
Oh dear. Anyone who has a premises with a working television set present in it must have a licence for it. There is a fine of up to £1000 for not licensing a television and although the TV Licensing will be sympathetic about a genuine oversight or misunderstanding, anyone deliberately flouting the law will be penalised. Remember that once you are 75 the licence is free – but you must still apply for it. More on 0845 603 6999 or from www.tvlicensing.co.uk
And while we are on the subject of living alone, remember that anyone aged 60 or more should get the winter fuel payment. Now, this amount is £200, but if you live in the same household as another person aged over 60 you will only get £100 each. Normally this works out fairly – a couple living together get £100 each or £200 between them. But the same rules applies to three, four or more people over 60 sharing a home. So if there are four of you – perhaps two couples or four brothers and sisters, then you still get £100 each. The key date for getting the benefit was 23 September 2001 – if you were 60 on or before that date then you qualify. Most people do not have to claim. If you have had a winter fuel payment in a previous winter or if you get a retirement pension or widow’s benefit then you should get it automatically. But if you reached 60 in the last twelve months the chances are you will have to claim. Mr G writes from Surrey "Having reached the age of 60, what is the procedure for claiming the Winter Fuel Payment?" You do that by ringing 08459 151515 or www.dwp.gov.uk/winterfuel website, where you can also download a claim form.
There are some people who do not get the payment even though they are over 60. They include
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People living outside the UK – even those living in the channel islands or Ireland who get a UK retirement pension are excluded.·
People who have been in hospital for more than 12 months·
People in jail·
People in a residential care or nursing home who do not pay all their own fees.
Mrs S writes from Yorkshire with a timely reminder about the £10,000 payment which is being made to people who were Far East prisoners of war and their widows. She said "A friend of mine is a widow of a former prisoner-of-war of the Japanese. After a lot of searching I found that she had to apply for this compensation and we discovered a special telephone line. When asked why this had not been publicized she was told "we were relying on word of mouth!" The £10,000 is tax-free and does not count when entitlement to means-tested benefits – such as council tax benefit – is worked out. Call 0800 169 2277.
A number of readers have written about the rebates on vehicle excise duty (car tax) for cars which are 1201-1549cc (Claim Your refund, Saga Magazine, May 2001). The tax has been cut for these cars and some people who had already licensed their vehicle can get a rebate – but not everyone. The car tax had to be taken out between November 2000 and June 2001. people who taxed their car from before November 2000 do not get the rebate. So Mr C who wrote form Dorset to say "I paid £155 on August 1st 2000. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency says I am not entitled to any rebate." Sadly, the DVLA is right. The car tax had to be run from one of the nine months November 2000 to June 2001. Anyone who took out the tax BEFORE November 2000, even in October, will not get the £55 rebate. More information from the DVLA 0870 241 2449 or from www.dvla.gov.uk
Howard e-mailed us to ask about Equitable Life. "It appears from your article (Saga Magazine September 2001) that non-guaranteed policyholders may have a case against the Financial Services Authority in respect of policies issued and premiums paid since November 1998." It is an interesting conclusion from what I wrote but it may be true. The Parliamentary Ombudsman has announced that he will be looking into claims of maladministration against the Financial Services Authority for the period from January 1999 to the day that Equitable Life closed for new business on December 8, 2000. The argument is that the regulator should have ensured that Equitable Life warned new customers about the potential liabilities the company faced to people who had been given unsustainable guarantees in the past. In July 2000 the House of Lords decided those guarantees had to be honoured and all other Equitable Life members without the guarantees were liable to pay them. So If you were sold an Equitable Life policy in that period, and feel that the regulator should have acted differently, then you should put in a complaint through your MP who will pass the case on to the Ombudsman.
Finally, several of you wrote to me following my piece on getting hold of money from forgotten or dormant bank accounts (Sitting on a Fortune Saga Magazine July 2001). Now there is a new service from National Savings. You can use one simple form to find old or lost National Savings certificates, forgotten National Savings accounts or those old Premium Bonds that you have lost track of. I was given a premium bond in 1960 and I was keen to see if they could track it down. They did – it was for £1 and I hadn’t won anything – but they also found two more I had forgotten about entirely which I bought in 1973, also lost when I moved around a lot as a student. They are now sending me replacement bonds so in future I can have the fun of checking my three numbers every month! You can also apply on behalf of relatives who have died. National Savings says there is £1.5 billion in dormant and unclaimed amounts. So even after my £3 but there’s still plenty left for the rest of you! You can get the form by ringing 0845 964 5000 or visit the National Savings website www.nationalsavings.co.uk where you can download the form and fill it in.
January 2002
e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@paullewis.co.uk