A rundown seafront building in Hove is being charged council tax after the town’s Conservative MP Mike Weatherley intervened.
Mr Weatherley has raised the state of Medina House in King’s Esplanade a number of times since his election last year to the House of Commons.
He wrote to the chief executive of Brighton and Hove City Council John Barradell in March to say that the people occupying the property were not paying council tax.
A spokesman for Mr Weatherley said: “Although it has been occupied by various groups who use local resources, council tax has not been charged.
“Quite simply, council tax is now being charged following Mike’s intervention.”
Mr Weatherley said in his letter that it was unjust that people should live in the building and not pay towards local services.
He said that this injustice had brought to his attention by people living near the property which is owned by the developer Sirus Taghan.
The spokesman for Mr Weatherley said: “Medina House has now been assessed and has been classed as band A, which currently attracts an annual bill of £988.32.”
Mr Weatherley said: “This is just one small case but it makes the point that everybody should be paying their fair share.
“It costs a lot of money to run a city like ours.
“I will be monitoring the situation here closely with my colleague Councillor Andrew Wealls, who now represents the Central Hove area, especially with regard to the building’s appalling condition.”
Mr Taghan wants to demolish the building and replace it with a tower block.
He has had planning applications rejected for an 18-storey building, a 16-storey one and most recently a 10-storey block.
The old baths have been empty for 20 years but Mr Taghan’s plans were described by the council as “excessively out of scale”.
* An earlier version of this report referred to band A as the top rate of council tax. It is in fact the lowest.
