What is a landlords obligation and method of informing local authorities of a new tenant's occupancy?

Question

What is the channel or method by which landlords communicate of a new tenants residence in a property to a council? And are they required to do this?

Bonus points for the same thing but about utilities.

Answer 1

There's mostly no legal requirement*, because the landlord can - if he wishes - pay the tenants' council tax and utility bills himself. This is common for HMOs (houses in multiple occupancy) - principally for logistical reasons, as there's often no fair way to measure utility usage per person in an HMO, and council tax is applied to the whole property, not to individual occupants - and so the rent may reflect that these bills are paid for by the landlord.

The risk to the landlord is that if the tenants use a lot of electricity, gas or water (if metered), or if utility prices rise, it's the landlord who takes the hit in the short term - until he can raise rents to compensate (which generally he can only do once a year).

Hence for non-HMOs, there is a financial benefit to the landlord for the tenants to be responsible for these bills, and it's logistically simple since, unlike an HMO, the tenants form a single household, and can decide for themselves how to split their bills.

In terms of notification: the outgoing tenants should contact the council and utility companies to tell them the date of the end of tenancy; for the latter, that will also include the final meter readings. (If the tenants don't do this, then the landlord should.) The council and utilities will then send letters to the property, addressed to the tenants (or "The Occupants" if the landlord hasn't passed on the new tenants' names), and it's then the tenants' responsibility to open accounts with the council/utilities, set up direct debits, etc.

Note that if there is a gap between the end of the old tenancy and the start of the new one, the landlord is responsible for all bills in that period, and for keeping the council/utilities informed.

Relevant links from Shelter England on bills, and on moving out.

(* If any council tax discounts are claimed by tenants, then it might be necessary for the council to have all relevant information about occupants - though this question appears to suggest that there may be a loophole in some cases.)