It means the council takes you out of the headcount. If that leaves one countable adult in the property, a 25% discount follows.

Plenty of people go years without claiming a disregard they qualified for throughout, so this page sets out the mechanism, what a disregard is worth, and how far the published law can actually be pinned down. What council tax discounts are available in Scotland is the wider guide.

A disregard removes a person from the adult count. An exemption removes the property from the charge, and a discount reduces the amount payable on a property that is still liable.

Three mechanisms, three outcomes

Councils use the words loosely

A council letter may call all of them a discount, which is where most of the confusion starts. Our council tax discounts page keeps them apart.

And Council Tax Reduction is a fourth thing again

It is a separate means-tested scheme, applied for from the council, and it can cover up to 100% of the liability. What Council Tax Reduction in Scotland is explains it.

It depends how many countable adults are left. The ladder runs from a 25% discount, through a 50% discount, to a full exemption, and it is set by section 79 of the 1992 Act.

The money ladder

Why the flat answers you see are wrong

Saying that a particular disregard is worth 25% is only true for one household shape. Where every resident is disregarded as severely mentally impaired the dwelling is exempt instead, and what the severe mental impairment council tax exemption is covers that.

Section 79(2)(a) was repealed with effect from 1 April 2005. The 50% figure comes from section 79(2)(b) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which gives twice the appropriate percentage where all the residents are disregarded.

A single countable adult is the ordinary case

One adult plus one disregarded adult produces exactly the same 25% as one adult living alone. How the single person discount works in Scotland covers the simple version.

The categories are in Schedule 1 to the 1992 Act, and the conditions for each are set by the Council Tax (Discounts) (Scotland) Consolidation and Amendment Order 2003. Two of them can be set out here in full, and several more can only be named.

Why this article does not print a complete list with conditions

There is no up-to-date consolidated text of SSI 2003/176 published on legislation.gov.uk. Its changes index records 38 effects, and every one of them is marked as not yet applied to the displayed text.

So the version anybody can read online is the 2003 text, and it is out of date. We have set out the conditions we could verify by opening the amending instruments, and we have not invented the ones we could not.

The categories, and how far each can be sourced

What to do about the categories with no conditions here

• Ask your council for its application form for that specific disregard, because the form sets out what the council will want to see.
• Ask a free money adviser or Citizens Advice to check the current conditions against the amending instruments.
• Apply anyway if you think you fit. A refusal comes with reasons, and reasons tell you which condition is in issue.

Three, and they are cumulative. Paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 1 requires the person to be severely mentally impaired on the day, to be certified by a registered medical practitioner, and to meet conditions set by order.

The statutory definition

Paragraph 2(2) defines severe mental impairment as a severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning, however caused, which appears to be permanent. No order replacing that definition was found.

Who can sign the certificate

The certificate has to come from a registered medical practitioner. The regulations do not say it must be your own GP.

A memory clinic doctor, an old age psychiatrist or a hospital consultant can certify. Most council forms ask for the general practitioner because that is where the records are.

The third limb is a qualifying benefit

Article 4 of SSI 2003/176 sets the prescribed conditions, and the main route is entitlement to one of a list of qualifying benefits. What the severe mental impairment council tax exemption is carries the full list, including the four Scottish devolved disability payments that are missing from the published text of the order.

Universal Credit stopped being an automatic qualifying benefit on 1 April 2023. It now counts only where the award includes the limited capability for work-related activity amount, or the person has limited capability for work.

There are two separate routes and they use different numbers. Running them together is the most common error on this subject.

The two thresholds

Foreign language assistants are a third category within the same article, and there is a route for somebody holding an offer of a place on a degree course after completing an HNC or HND. Do students have to pay council tax in Scotland sets both out.

The institution has to certify on request

Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 requires an institution to supply a certificate on request to anybody who is following or has followed a course there. It may refuse a request made more than one year after the person stopped following the course.

And the CTR definition of student is a different one

Council Tax Reduction uses its own definition of a student, so the two do not always line up.

Usually not, and this is the trap. Section 75(4) removes a disregarded person from joint and several liability only where the disregard is severe mental impairment under paragraph 2 or student status under paragraph 4.

Every other disregard leaves the liability in place

Somebody disregarded as an apprentice, a care leaver or a carer is still jointly and severally liable with the other liable people in the property. They are taken out of the headcount, not out of the debt.

Joint and several means each person owes the whole amount rather than a share, so this is not a technicality. What the council tax hierarchy of liability is sets out how liability is worked out in the first place.

Where section 75(4) does bite

Where one of the people concerned is not disregarded on one of those two grounds, that person is solely liable. Where two or more are not, those two or more are jointly and severally liable between themselves.

Section 77 has the same carve-out

The spouse, civil partner and cohabitant extension in section 77 is disapplied where the other person is disregarded as severely mentally impaired or as a student. It is not disapplied for any other disregard.

Apply to the council, in writing, with the evidence for the period. There is no statutory maximum backdating period for a discount, an exemption or the disabled band reduction.

Entitlement runs from when the conditions were met

How far back a council actually goes is discretionary and evidence-led, so practice varies and no national period can be given. Can you get council tax backdated if you were wrongly charged deals with the ask itself.

Severe mental impairment has its own starting point

Entitlement starts on the later of the date of medical certification and the first day of entitlement to a qualifying benefit. A certificate can cover a past period, because paragraph 2(1)(b) speaks of a person stated to have been, or to be likely to be, severely mentally impaired.

In practice most Scottish councils tie backdating to benefit receipt rather than to diagnosis. That is the source of the widely reported gap in dementia cases.

What to send

• The dates the conditions were met, and the address for each period.
• The certificate, the course certificate, the benefit award letter or whatever the category calls for.
• Who else lived there for each period, so the council can work out the discount.

Ask for the decision and the reason in writing, then use the appeal route. Liability and discount questions go to the council first and then to the Local Taxation Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland.

The Chamber replaced the old committees on 1 April 2023

The Valuation Appeal Committee and the Council Tax Reduction Review Panel both transferred to the Local Taxation Chamber on that date. Liability and water charge appeals run to 4 months.

Council Tax Reduction has its own two-stage route with a 2-month review request and a 42-day onward appeal. Guidance on the schemes sits on mygov.scot.

Keep paying while you argue if you can

A disregard argument does not pause recovery. What happens if you do not pay your council tax in Scotland sets out the sequence, which moves faster than most people expect.

And if arrears have already built on the wrong bill

Get the disregard applied and the account recalculated, then deal with what is left. Our council tax debt advice page sets out how we help, and how to set up a council tax payment arrangement covers the practical route.