Quote From sylvester:
I remember a case recently where Islington council took a 4th year PhD student to court for non-payment. It was immediately thrown out by the judge because it was blatently obvious that the student was working full time on their PhD.
That case did indeed happen but it appears the court was rather hasty in throwing it out (and quite possibly in error). Fayad v Lewisham, Oct 2009, established that students who are writing up are not considered to be students for council tax purposes and are therefore not exempt from council tax.
So, if your University provides you with information for council tax purposes that says you are a student when in fact you are writing up is in fact breaking the law. And, of course, if you use such information to gain council tax exemption, you too are breaking the law. Oh, and by the way, Local Authorities do check!
I'm not saying that this is fair or otherwise, but that the law is pretty clear on it.
