Council Tax energy rebate

What is the energy rebate?

To help with increased energy costs, the Government has recently announced a £150 Council Tax energy rebate for certain households.

It is a one-off payment that does not need to be repaid.

We provided information regarding the rebate with our Council Tax billing for 2022/23.

Who is eligible?

To qualify for the Council Tax energy rebate, the following conditions must be met on 1 April 2022:

• The property is valued in Council Tax bands A to D. This also includes property that is valued in band E but has an alternative valuation band of band D, as a result of the disabled band reduction scheme. Your Council Tax band is shown on your bill or you can find your Council Tax band on the GOV.UK website.
• The property is occupied as someone’s only or main home.
• It is a chargeable dwelling, or in Council Tax exemption classes, N (occupied only by full-time students), S (occupied only by persons under the age of 18), U (occupied only by persons with a severe mental impairment) or W (an annex to a property occupied by the dependant relative of the person living in the main property).
• A property that meets all the criteria but has a nil Council Tax liability as a result of local Council Tax support, will also be eligible.

Properties that have no permanent resident such as unoccupied properties or second homes will not be eligible.

Landlords or tenants of properties that are classed as a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) for Council Tax purposes (including those wholly occupied by full-time students and exempt from Council Tax under Class N) are not eligible for a payment from the main scheme.

In addition, the liable Council Tax payer cannot be a local authority, a corporate body or other body such as a housing association, the government or governmental body.

How will my household get its £150 rebate?

We have started making automatic payments of £150 to eligible households who pay their Council Tax by Direct Debit. This will show in your chosen bank account as 'Derby City Council' or 'Bank Credit Derby City Council'.

In the case of multiple residents who are jointly liable for Council Tax, the payment will be made to the bank account held for the household.

If you are in bands A to D and don’t pay your Council Tax by Direct Debit, we will write to you in May telling you how to claim your rebate.

We will also provide details of how we can help those people to claim who aren’t able to do it themselves.

If you've not received your payment but recently set up a Direct Debit

If you have completed a form to pay by Direct Debit but you haven't received your payment it may have arrived too late for our first payment run. We are planning a second payment run by 24 May 2022. If you have still not been paid on the second run, we will write to you in May setting out how you can get the energy rebate.

If your account is overdrawn

You can use the energy rebate to help reduce your overdraft. If you do not wish to do this, you can 'exercise your right of appropriation' by asking your bank not to use this to pay off any overdraft. An example letter that you can send to your bank is available on the National Debtline website. 

If someone else pays Council Tax on your behalf

If someone else pays Council Tax for you, they won't receive the payment. The rebate is only available to the occupants of an eligible property. If you live in an eligible property and someone else usually pays your Council Tax bill, we will write to you in May setting out how you can get the energy rebate.

What if my household isn't eligible?

If you don’t qualify for a payment from the main scheme, you may be able to get a payment of up to £150 from our discretionary scheme.

Details of our scheme will be published on our website and posted on our social media channels later in the year.

I've received a payment but didn't meet the eligibility criteria

The rebate is being paid on the assumption that the person it has been sent to was a liable Council Tax payer on 1 April 2022 (or who would have been if the property were not exempt from paying Council Tax) and that they occupy a property which meets all the following criteria on 1 April 2022:

• it is valued in Council Tax bands A to D. This includes property that is valued in band E but has an alternative valuation band of band D, as a result of the disabled band reduction scheme
• it is someone’s main residence
• it is a chargeable dwelling, or in exemption classes N, S, U or W (where class N is a property occupied only by full-time students, class S is a property only occupied by a person aged under 18 years old, class U is a property only people by people who are severely cognitively impaired and class W is an annexe only occupied by a dependent elderly or disabled relative).

If you have received a payment and don't think that you meet the eligibility criteria, the rebate may need to be repaid. Please tell us by emailing counciltaxenergyrebate@derby.gov.uk.

Change in circumstances

As the effective date for the Council Tax energy rebate is 1 April 2022, changes made to the Council Tax band of your home after this date will not be taken into consideration. The exception to this is newly built homes awaiting a valuation band, in these circumstances if the effective date is 1 April or before, a payment can be made provided all the eligibility criteria is met.

Fraudsters/scam warning

We are aware of several scams around the Energy Rebate scheme. Please be aware of people calling you and impersonating our officers.

Do not give out personal information unless you are satisfied that you are talking to an officer from Derby City Council.

Further information on identifying scams and reporting suspicious emails, phone calls and text messages can be found on the National Cyber Security Centre website and the Action Fraud website.

Council Tax Support and housing benefits

The energy rebate won't affect how much Council Tax support or housing benefits that you receive.

Tax credits and Universal Credit

The Council Tax energy rebate is non-taxable so it will not impact tax credits. If you receive tax credits, you don't need to report the payment to the HRMC as income. 

The energy rebate won't affect how much Universal Credit you receive.

Can I receive the rebate if I have no recourse to public funds?

As long as you meet the eligibility criteria then you will received the rebate. The Council Tax rebate (as part of the Energy Rebate Scheme 2022) is excluded from being considered a public fund under paragraph 6.2(i) of the Immigration Rules. This means that it is available to people who have no recourse to public funds, other than those who do not have leave to enter or remain in the UK and fall within one of the cohorts listed under Schedule 3 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.