No notification letter for outstanding NPPR?

Hello,

My father passed away in 2011 and left a house in trust for my brother, who is disabled. We are now selling the house and my solicitor made me aware of the NPPR tax only last week. I've lived in the UK since 1998 and we never received any letters regarding outstanding tax on the trust house (I can only guess it was because my father was deceased) so we were never given an opportunity to pay it before the huge increase for late payment last August. Do we have any leg to stand on if we write to the Council to ask for some of the payment to be refunded? The house is in trust to provide an income for my disabled brother and we've just paid €5370 for a €600 tax we didn't even know about! Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

You can try to appeal but ignorance of the tax won't stand for much with the Council.

Wasn't NPPR only on second homes so is it due in this case ? I would write to the council either way and appeal to their better half.

Does this help?

What is the exemption for a person who has to be taken into care because he/she is incapacitated due to illness, and who retains ownership of his or her house or apartment?

If a person has had to vacate their principal private residence (which they own) due to long-term incapacitation arising from physical or mental illness, the property is exempt from the charge irrespective of the use to which it is subsequently put. The exemption applies irrespective of whether the person lives in a nursing home or care centre, or whether he or she lives with relatives. The only condition is that the person must not own the property in which he or she now resides. “long term mental or physical infirmity” is defined in the legislation as an infirmity requiring the person to vacate the property in which he/she had been dwelling for a continuous period of more than 12 months and that is certified as such by a registered medical practitioner