Bit weird this. My son paid his council tax at the beginning of this month as usual but then got a reminder for a completely different amount, about £40 more than his proper monthly payment. Over the phone the Council admitted it was a mistake and he should ignore it. Today he and his partner have each received a summons to the magistrates court for non payment of the full amount remaining for the year.

He has full documentary evidence that he has never missed a payment, they've all been paid before the due date and are up to date. His first thought was to send this in to the court as his defence. Will this be sufficient? Is he better turning up? From what I hear magistrates just rubber stamp hundreds of these things and I'm worried they may not take note of a written defence.

They do rubber stamp, but they also ask if anyone has come to defend. Yes, you should turn up and with your paperwork, you will probably find the council person in attendance (that will be the one in the dark glasses and big bushy beard with a white mac and the collar turned up), will scrub you out at the door before it even get inside, they are cowardly like that and the liability order is all a [problem].

Councils make £hundreds of millions a year on this [problem], don't let yourselves be conned as well.

I don't think he has any intention of letting it go. Unless he defends it he will be stuck with an extra £80 costs which have been added. It's infuriating that because of computer generated mistakes this is going to cost him a days work and I suppose there is no way of getting this back if he turns up and it gets scrubbed out at the door.

because of computer generated mistakes

The computer didn't generate the error - crap in = crap out.

True. I'm getting increasingly frustrated with having to deal with this sort of thing in both the public and private sector. The time an individual now has to spend on personal admin is ridiculous and we're always made to feel it's our fault that they couldn't get it right.

Because there are government directives that 'all' departments, whatever they are, are to use stealth tactics to increase there income. All departments 'are' to make a profit.

Just to reiterate what I've said before on other threads, in 2007, councils in England made in excess of £200million on liability order fees. The actual cost is just £3 per order, so they are keen to get in as many as possible and will not use the discretion they are allowed to use.

I hope you are going to keep us updated with how this goes.

Certainly will - I think the date for court is 23rd November.

Ok - you are going to love this! My son has been summonsed because he has paid the wrong amount of council tax. Now there are two possibilities here - either too little or too much. Wanna guess which one it is?

Now have the full story of how this happened.

My son scribbled down the amount of the monthly payment in his diary and went off to work. During the day he logged into his bank a/c and made the payment. Unfortunately he misread the last figure as a 7 when it should have been a 1.

Not paying the 'correct' amount of council tax is a heinous crime and the local authority are apparently within their rights to prosecute because he paid SIX PENCE too much. Can someone help me out here. Can they really demand excessive admin charges and full payment for the remainder of the year because of an overpayment?

True. I'm getting increasingly frustrated with having to deal with this sort of thing in both the public and private sector. The time an individual now has to spend on personal admin is ridiculous and we're always made to feel it's our fault that they couldn't get it right.

How right you are. The amount of paper work that I find I'm having to deal with can be so stressful. I would like to know how you get on..