You may receive a 'review letter' from your council saying something like the following: 'Our records show that you are receiving a discount as you live alone. We are required to verify whether you are still entitled to this discount'.
The councils records cannot properly show that a situation which cannot arise in law applies to your finances. You are, or should be, receiving a discount of the appropriate amount on the assumption that the same rate will apply on every day of the coming year. If there is more than one entitled voter resident or if another person uses your address as a 'care of' address, this is in itself perfectly legal and does not constitute an irregularity. What would constitute an irregularity would be if there were two of you living there as your main home, and neither of you were disregarded. In which case you would owe the council more tax as the discount would not apply. But the odds are overwhelming that a person in receipt of one of these investigation letters is not guilty of any wrong-doing.
Beware of promising to inform the council if anybody moves in to your property. You have no such duty in law, but at least one council deliberately misleads people as to their obligations in this respect and several falsely state that not doing this means the council can penalise you. There are even council web pages which state that it is an offence and that you can be 'fined'.
Your council ought not to be providing you with false or misleading information, and such letters are valid grounds for complaints on the grounds of maladministration.
You might also ask your MP to write to Brandon Lewis asking him why he is providing incorrect information on official notepaper in this way, especially given the messages put out by his predecessor Bob Neill.
A good, if incomplete, research review of council tax discount law, dated early 2009 may be obtained from the Audit Commission and is also available on the Internet.
NB Dishonestly making false or misleading statements to obtain a financial gain can amount to fraud and should in all circumstances be avoided!
