council tax court summons-help please

**mooshy** · 28th August 2006 14:45

I cancelled my dd for council tax a couple of months ago as i knew there wasn`t enough in bank to honour dd.I meant to set it back up again when my salary went it but never did.I have missed about 3 months.
Just returned from holiday icon

to find a court sommons for Sept for the full amount !
Do i have to go to court and will they not just let me reinstate the dd for a higher amount so it is still all paid end Feb ?

Similar Threads:

**martin2006** · 28th August 2006 14:54

once they have issued court proceedings they wont go back to a payment plan.
If you go to court you can offer a payment schedule but will have to stick rigidly to it as the courts dont like being messed about.
You do not however have to attend. If you dont though they will judge against you and the next step for them is bailliffs.
The only other alternative i can think of is to pay in full before the court date.

**mooshy** · 28th August 2006 14:57

But the full amount is 1000 !
It says in the small print i dont have to attend if i agree with the amount which obviously i do.
Cant i just agree to a payment schedule out of court ?

**martin2006** · 28th August 2006 15:11

you can try but i dont hold out much hope now that they have issued proceedings.
your only course of action seems to be to go to court and make an arrangement with the court.

**patdavies** · 28th August 2006 17:04

If you ring the Council, they will probably agree a payment plan that will need to finish before the end of the tax year (IOW, they won't let you go into next year with arrears).

They will still continue to Court to obtain the liability order. Once they have this, if you deviate from the agreed plan then they can immediately go for the full amount owing and baliffs without further reference to the Court.

Zooman · 28th August 2006 21:38

Originally Posted by patdavies

If you ring the Council, they will probably agree a payment plan that will need to finish before the end of the tax year (IOW, they won't let you go into next year with arrears).

They will still continue to Court to obtain the liability order. Once they have this, if you deviate from the agreed plan then they can immediately go for the full amount owing and bailiffs icon

without further reference to the Court.

Spot on. Do not worry about the liability order now, you have to try to get them not to take you as it costs money but the bailiffs icon

will not call if you do the above and as said I also doubt they will pull it back now.

**Neville145** · 29th August 2006 18:33

This happened to me last year. I got behind and had a court summons. All I ever did was pay late due to my pay dates not being in sync with the 2nd of every month. I went to court but prior to going in, I was called to another office and Guildford Council offered me a payment plan up to the end of March. It is worth going to see if you can get the same.

bp · 30th August 2006 23:16

Hi, as most people have said, contact the council. I know that with my local Authority, you only need to attend court if your are going to argue liability otherwise there's no point. They may require you to pay the cost of court fees along with the remaining bill.

Good luck, I've just started on my council tax training so if anyone else has spotted anything wrong in this reply let me know.

**smoorach** · 2nd September 2006 23:45

just a point for future reference to stop this happening to you again at the begining of their financial year ie just after you make first payment of ct phone them and explain about your pay dates and ask them to note on their computer system the date you will pay this ia usually acceptable to them so long as you stick to not going outside the dates you have agreed. it prevents a whole heap of trouble

**patdavies** · 3rd September 2006 08:25

Originally Posted by smoorach

just a point for future reference to stop this happening to you again at the begining of their financial year ie just after you make first payment of ct phone them and explain about your pay dates and ask them to note on their computer system the date you will pay this ia usually acceptable to them so long as you stick to not going outside the dates you have agreed. it prevents a whole heap of trouble

Exactly so.

This is what I did. I rang them at the start of the tax year and pointed out that for all tax purposes, the financial year commences on 6th April and that I was certainly not going to pay anything before the tax year started (their demand was for 1st April!); I further told them that I, like most people, was paid in arrears and that I therrefoe wouldn't be paying counicl tax in advance - we agreed on the 28th of each month.

**winnie123** · 3rd September 2006 18:13

Hi

I also got a court summons to go to court I was able to contact the council and state how much I could pay. They are happy to accept this as long as it clears any in arrears and the bill for the year

Thread: council tax court summons-help please

Thread Tools

Search Thread

council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please

Re: council tax court summons-help please