IN response to Anne Wilcox's question (Letters, October 30), the reason why the council can legally (although not fairly) harass Fiona Coleman over council tax is because most student houses are let on joint tenancy agreements.

So all tenants are liable jointly and severally for rent and bills, including council tax.

After finishing university, I remained in the same house in which I had spent my final year as a student. I was the only one of the six people in the house who was not a student, and got walloped for 75 per cent of the full council tax for the band C house, an amount which I struggled to pay on poor wages.

If each room had a separate tenancy agreement, each would be taxed individually (as Band A, with 75 per cent discount). But most student and many other shared houses are let on joint tenancy agreements. This is because if rooms are let separately, they become houses of multiple occupation, requiring planning permission for a change of use.

Also, many houses let to students have mortgages, and lenders can be less keen to lend on houses of multiple occupation.

Basically, the 75 per cent discount is given as standard to a single occupier, so the underlying assumption is that as the one working person in a house of six I had use of the full house.

In fact, all I had was one room and communal facilities. It seems to me there is a loophole in the regulations here, which allows the council to exploit working people sharing houses with students and making them unfairly pay more tax.

Surely a fairer system would be to divide the council tax between the number of tenants and charge each working person accordingly.

David Bryant,

Yarburgh Way,

York.

Updated: 11:02 Friday, November 12, 2004