HUNDREDS of homes in Oxford are avoiding paying council tax through false occupancy claims, residents say.

An investigation is being launched by Oxford City Council, which looks to have been missing out on large sums of revenue for years.

It decided to act after a residents’ group in East Oxford carried out a study into student numbers living in private properties.

East Oxford Residents’ Associations Forum has now submitted its findings to the district auditor.

Forum chairman Elizabeth Mills said about 700 student homes were recorded as having just one person living in them.

But a random sample of them, checked against the electoral roll, found on average five people living in each property. Student homes are exempt from council tax, regardless of the number of students living there.

But if just one tenant in a house occupied by a number of people is not a student, then the landlord loses the exemption from council tax.

And the residents’ forum says that the practice of saying there is just a single tenant when a property is actually a house of multiple-occupancy allows them to avoid it.

It says the council’s failure to identify these so called ‘mixed tenancy’ homes means it is missing out on large amounts of tax that it is due.

The forum also says that the practice means that the number of students living in private rented property in the city could be far greater than currently estimated.

Sietske Boeles, who carried out the research for the residents’ associations, said: “About a quarter of the 2,600 properties exempt due to being solely occupied by students are marked as being occupied by one person.

“It is not very plausible as most of these properties are large and generally in the D or F band.

“When I checked, more than 80 per cent had more than one person registered on the electoral roll.

“The council has just not been bothering to check, although I have raised this issue with them previously.”

And with fears that figures on student numbers were inaccurate, Ms Boeles said no planning decisions should be taken on student accommodation applications.

Colin Cook, city council board member for city development, said: “We are on the case and will be writing to the universities.”

With council tax for band D currently set at £1,580 and band F at £2,284, he recognised the sums involved “could be significant”.

Mr Cook added: “We now need more time to look at the figures to get a better impression about what is going on.

“It also seems that there are more students out there than the figures we get from the universities seem to indicate. But I believe the universities are giving us figures in good faith.

“It is a question of how much effort you want officers to put into this. I don’t think you need to be accurate to the last single student.”