Council Tax dispute

[quick-smart]

This is my fourth post today, but got a few things going on with different companies/agencies at any one time (don't we all!)

My partner and I lived in a flat in Coventry from June 2005 to June 2006. Now as far as I'm aware, we paid all our council tax, every month, same amount each time.

When we moved out the letting agency notified all utilites etc we had departed and took my parnters address as a point of contact.

Out of the blue, about 3 months ago we received a final notice for £72 for council tax during this period. This is very odd for two reasons, firstly, we've not lived there for nearly two years, so why didn't they notify us of a shortfall when the account with them was closed in June 2006?
Secondly, if the council tax bill each month was about £90 a time, how do we owe £72, we lived there for exactly 53 weeks, so if we missed a month, surely we'd owe more than the £72. It's as though one month we only paid £20!

Anyway, within about 3 days of receiving the final notice, we received the following letter

Dear (Me)

I am writing to let you know I have been alerted to a problem that has resulted in a Council Tax Bill being sent to earlier this week by mistake.

The IT system that generates council tax bills which are issued to residents has been upgraded in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, these changes did not include updating some of the information we hold in the system.
As a result a small number of people who should not have received these bills have now done so. The problem has been rectified to make sure this doesn't happen again, and if we need to contact you about any issue around your council tax we will do so again over the coming weeks. In the meantime please ignore the letter you received earlier this week.

I am sorry that this has happened and for any inconvenience that may have been caused as a result of the problem. If you would like to talk to us about this issue please contact us on .......

Yours, etc, lady for the council tax office.

Can you see from this why I might be disinclined to pay this bill?

Unfortunately after we received the Final Notice, I e-mailed the council tax to alert them to the error, before the above letter had even reached us. I have now e-mailed them and received corresponding replies about 6 times now, each time basically saying that as far as they are concerned, the system still shows that I owe £72. I have tried asking them to investigate as perhaps the original problem isn't resolved, I've sent copies of the above letter to them and each time is the same.

The most comprehensive reply I received stated that the letter I received was referring to the Final Notice, not the council tax bill itself, and that we still owed the money.

Now, I may be dull sometimes, but surely if what they meant to say was "Oops, we sent a Final Notice by mistake, don't panic, it was a clerical error but you still owe us £72, and here's how you can pay and when we want the money by" They should have said that, rather than "Oops, we sent you a council tax bill by mistake, sorry chaps, IT system went loopy, just ignore it"

I haven't received any further documentation saying I owe them money (you'd think by now they would actually have sent a Final Notice) but I seem to be going round in circles.

My next contact with them will be by post, but I'm cursing my stupid effeciency in getting in touch with them in the first place, as I would not have got into this mess to begin with, and I don't know what else I can say other than "I don't owe this money, I won't be paying, please close this matter, see attached letter" to get it through to them that I don't owe this money, I won't be paying the money and they should learn English before they start sending out random letters that say one thing, but that I should mind read actually means something entirely different!!!

Help, please, before I go slowly mad in the world of Warwickshire council tax mumbo jumbo!!

[quick-smart]

This is my fourth post today, but got a few things going on with different companies/agencies at any one time (don't we all!)

My partner and I lived in a flat in Coventry from June 2005 to June 2006. Now as far as I'm aware, we paid all our council tax, every month, same amount each time.

When we moved out the letting agency notified all utilites etc we had departed and took my parnters address as a point of contact.

Out of the blue, about 3 months ago we received a final notice for £72 for council tax during this period. This is very odd for two reasons, firstly, we've not lived there for nearly two years, so why didn't they notify us of a shortfall when the account with them was closed in June 2006?
Secondly, if the council tax bill each month was about £90 a time, how do we owe £72, we lived there for exactly 53 weeks, so if we missed a month, surely we'd owe more than the £72. It's as though one month we only paid £20!

Anyway, within about 3 days of receiving the final notice, we received the following letter

Dear (Me)

I am writing to let you know I have been alerted to a problem that has resulted in a Council Tax Bill being sent to earlier this week by mistake.

The IT system that generates council tax bills which are issued to residents has been upgraded in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, these changes did not include updating some of the information we hold in the system.
As a result a small number of people who should not have received these bills have now done so. The problem has been rectified to make sure this doesn't happen again, and if we need to contact you about any issue around your council tax we will do so again over the coming weeks. In the meantime please ignore the letter you received earlier this week.

I am sorry that this has happened and for any inconvenience that may have been caused as a result of the problem. If you would like to talk to us about this issue please contact us on .......

Yours, etc, lady for the council tax office.

Can you see from this why I might be disinclined to pay this bill?

Unfortunately after we received the Final Notice, I e-mailed the council tax to alert them to the error, before the above letter had even reached us. I have now e-mailed them and received corresponding replies about 6 times now, each time basically saying that as far as they are concerned, the system still shows that I owe £72. I have tried asking them to investigate as perhaps the original problem isn't resolved, I've sent copies of the above letter to them and each time is the same.

The most comprehensive reply I received stated that the letter I received was referring to the Final Notice, not the council tax bill itself, and that we still owed the money.

Now, I may be dull sometimes, but surely if what they meant to say was "Oops, we sent a Final Notice by mistake, don't panic, it was a clerical error but you still owe us £72, and here's how you can pay and when we want the money by" They should have said that, rather than "Oops, we sent you a council tax bill by mistake, sorry chaps, IT system went loopy, just ignore it"

I haven't received any further documentation saying I owe them money (you'd think by now they would actually have sent a Final Notice) but I seem to be going round in circles.

My next contact with them will be by post, but I'm cursing my stupid effeciency in getting in touch with them in the first place, as I would not have got into this mess to begin with, and I don't know what else I can say other than "I don't owe this money, I won't be paying, please close this matter, see attached letter" to get it through to them that I don't owe this money, I won't be paying the money and they should learn English before they start sending out random letters that say one thing, but that I should mind read actually means something entirely different!!!

Help, please, before I go slowly mad in the world of Warwickshire council tax mumbo jumbo!!

[Conniff]

Hopefully you didn't pay the tax with cash and you have a record of the payments made. if it was by cash then you still have the slip receipts they give you.
Check again against these records that you did in fact pay all the required months.

Either with or without proof of payment, you should ask the council how they came to that figure and for what.

The onus is on them to prove you owe this payment and not on you to disprove.

If you still have no joy with them, then send a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) (with £10) and you will get back everything including a payment record and you should see where they claim a payment is missing.

[Conniff]

This is your 5th post and is the same as your 4th.

[quick-smart]

sorry, I spent so long trying to work out how to attach the letter before typing it out, the forum logged me out when I clicked on 'post thread' when I logged back in, it came back to my post and was still in edit mode so clicked it again. Apologies

[Conniff]

No apology required quick-smart, we have all done it, I should have put a smilie at the end of my post, will do that now.

[sequenci]

Can you find out what your council tax liability was for the time you spent in the flat and compare it to the amount you've paid. You need to double check this just in case. The key reason being is that if you are liable for that small amount it could grow with court fees and possibly bailiff fees, I would sooner this gets nipped in the bud now than let it escalate. I hope that makes sense?

[MARTIN3030]

2 threads merged please keep all posts relating to this thread together in here.Makes everyones job easier in helping you.

[quick-smart]

Update on this, I've been so busy this week that I didn't get a chance to send a Subject access request to the council, strated it yesterday, and they've only gone and sent me a date to appear in court! It's 14th May I think.

Two questions, a) can I still request the Subject Access Request and what, if any, effect will that have on the council taking me to court, and b) I obviously have to go to court if it comes to that, but what do I do!!

Can anyone help me, please

[Conniff]

Have you got receipts or bank statements showing your payments??

[quick-smart]

May possibly have some receipts/bank statement data, but they're all in storage and inacessible at the moment. I doubt I would have them for the entire time we lived there, some months I paid it online from my account, some months I paid it on their website, and some months I just went to the council office and paid it either over the counter or into one of those machines.

Surely though, if they're contacting me out of the blue like this, they should give some proof of how this payment error has come about?

[Conniff]

They don't seem to be interested in anything except collecting. I once, after a dozen emails, faxed them a sheet of A4 with hugh marker pen writing across it 'will some bugger answer me', that worked.

Your difficulty will be in not having receipts, so you need to get that Subject Access Request off as soon as possible.

Is this court summons for 'liabiltiy' or for payment ?

[quick-smart]

I'm not sure whether it's for liability or payment.

However, as we're having major worries over the OH's income tax at the moment, and that's a huge issue, I now just want to get this out of the way. I know they've already added an extra £69 to the £72 bill in costs. If I pay this before the court date, do you think they will accept the £72 payment? Really would be p****d off if I had to pay anything more than the original bill amount.

[Conniff]

It will say on it if it is for liability. Take a look and see what it says.

If it is for a liability order, and if you cannot prove non liability, then the court has no option but to grant it. It will not show on any cra records.

The added extra will be court fees and will not be returnable so no they wont accept just the £72. Any money you pay in will be used to pay the court fee first and the debt second.

[quick-smart]

Sorry, forgot the second line on that one, I won't know until Monday what it says, as it's been sent to my partner who lives in Wales.

Thanks for the info.