Dear Chief Executive,
FINANCIAL ASSESSMENT OF CROFT TENANCY PROPERTY AND SOCIAL CARE CHARGES.
I was dismayed to learn from your Report to Council yesterday, 6 May 2020, of your decision to disregard Council’s decision of 3 March 2020 and remove the suspension of assessment on croft tenancies.
The Legal Opinion provided to the Council appears to support the position set out by Cllr MacMillan and I when we secured a majority decision of Councillors to introduce the said suspension on financial assessment of crofting tenancies, indeed all tenancies.
Referring to page 9, section 3 of Senior Counsel’s Opinion:
What means, if any, of realising the value of croft property are open to the Comhairle?
[Where a croft is owned, then the council are able to secure a charging order over the croft. (This is not the subject of dispute)
The problem relates to tenanted crofts, because a charging order cannot be secured over the tenancy.]
I would be most grateful for your interpretation of thIs section of the Opinion or where you consider the section referred to is overridden.
The in depth Legal Opinion goes on to explain that a possible route might be to make the croft tenant or a deceased crofter’s estate bankrupt! There would however be no certainty that any moneys could be obtained by the Comhairle.
In the unlikely event - after costs - that any money would be left for the care budget, any threat of bankruptcy against a tenant might understandably be mistaken for a form of coercion and I sincerely trust no such action would ever be condoned.
I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely. Donald Manford
A journal written by the SNP opposition group on the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council).
