After section 77 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (c. 14), insert—

“77ALiability of civil partners

(1)

Where—

(a)

a person who is liable to pay council tax in respect of any chargeable dwelling and any day is in civil partnership with another person or living with another person in a relationship which has the characteristics of the relationship between civil partners; and

(b)

that other person is also a resident of the dwelling on that day but would not, apart from this section, be so liable,

those persons shall be jointly and severally liable to pay the council tax payable in respect of that dwelling and that day.

(2)

Subsection (1) above shall not apply as respects any day on which the other person there mentioned falls to be disregarded for the purposes of discount—

(a)

by virtue of paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to this Act (the severely mentally impaired); or

(b)

being a student, by virtue of paragraph 4 of that Schedule.”