Payment protection

Two leading disability charities have persuaded the government to change the law so that older and disabled people living in care homes will automatically be exempt from council tax.

Residents of a home run by the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB), and one belonging to charity John Grooms, were asked to pay council tax because upgrading facilities in their rooms made them "too independent" to qualify for exemption as needing staff support.

The charities say they upgraded their facilities to comply with government guidelines that people in residential care should enjoy the same kind of facilities that they would have in their own homes.

The 37 residents - mostly in their 80s and 90s - in the RNIB's home, Kathleen Chambers House in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, were each given a cooker in their rooms, a sink and en suite bathroom. In John Grooms' Dolphin Court, in Southend, Essex, 20 residents - mostly young people using wheelchairs - were each given an en suite bathroom and some cooking facilities.

The improvements led the Inland Revenue to reassess the homes and the extra facilities were deemed to convert the rooms into "individual dwellings" that were no longer eligible for council tax redemption.

However, following petitions from the charities, the local government minister, Nick Raynsford has announced that the government intends to change the law so that all 24,000 registered care homes in England are assessed for council tax as a single residence - even when they provide self-contained units for independent living.

"The care home owner, rather than individual residents, should be liable for the council tax," Raynsford said in a statement to parliament. The announcement, he acknowledged, had come "in the light of appeals" from the charities. A draft of the amending legislation is expected to be released for consultation at the end of the month.

Mike Shaw, executive director of John Grooms, describes the announcement as "a victory for common sense".

Despite their success, the charities are dismayed that have to continue long-standing legal battles with the Inland Revenue on its original decisions to tax their residents. Pursuing the cases through the courts has cost both charities thousands of pounds, which they say could otherwise have been spent providing services to their clients.