Hi all,

I received a summons today from my council for being 1 month late with August' payment. I received no reminder for this payment, just a summons. I have never been in arrears and have always paid my council tax in full every year. Having never been in this position before I am furious at this unnecessary overreaction by the council. Is this normal practice for councils?

The charges applied to this summons are also outrageous. £3 court costs and £112 charged by the council!! Unbelievable.

I will speak to the council tomorrow and pay the August installment.I would however like the answers to a couple of questions if some kind soul could spare a few minute.

Do councils really have the ability to issue a summons for a 'late' August payment before the end of the August month and almost a week before most people are paid? Before any reminder is sent?

When I pay tomorrow does the summons go away? and the ridiculous charges?

And does this summons have any affect on my credit score or record reporting?

Thanks for looking

M

Do councils really have the ability to issue a summons for a 'late' August payment before the end of the August month and almost a week before most people are paid? Before any reminder is sent?

Normal practice is 1-2 reminders, a final notice and then a summons, and this applies to the entire annual charge, it isn't something that is reset for each individual instalment.

I don't know about your council but where I live the charge is due on the 1st of every month. If they haven't received payment by about the 15th then reminders are sent. If you pay that but then are late again next month your account will progress to the next reminder stage, and so on and so forth until a summons is issued. So if you've paid 2-3 instalments late this financial year - after reminders/finals have been issued - then yes, they have the right to summons you for this. However if you haven't received any recovery notices for this year's tax then you need to call them up and ask when reminders have been issued, what instalments they were issued for and when payment for those instalments were received, because they can't issue a summons without having issued previous reminders first.

A suggestion regarding paying pay day: if you are paid at the end of each month and your tax is due at the start of the month then you should pay the coming months' CT when you get paid, so you're paying in advance rather than in arrears. This will prevent recovery action against you. If your account were to go to court, saying "I paid it on the 29th because that's when I get paid" won't stand up.

When I pay tomorrow does the summons go away? and the ridiculous charges?

If you pay the balance in full then your account is paid for the year and won't go to court. However if you only intend on paying the August instalment and not the rest then the summons still stands. You will alos still be liable for the court fees unless the council agree that the summons should never have been issued - reasons such as your payment crossed with it - in which case the council will remove them.

And does this summons have any affect on my credit score or record reporting?

It has no affect on your credit score at all. Don't know what record reporting is but I doubt it.

I hope that makes sense, if anything is unclear or you have any more questions then please ask and I will try my best to answer them

Apologies for the late response Nobnob but I have been away at short notice.

Following some discussions with our bank and the council, some good news emerged.

Firstly, the bank mistakenly cancelled our CT DD whilst my wife was cancelling some expired DD's.

Secondly, the council admitted they did not send any reminders for any missed instalments (there wern't any apart from August) and have withdrawn the summons and cancelled the fees. They issued a somewhat grudging apology over the phone and I have demanded a letter with all the necessary details listed in it.

Thank you for detailed response Nobnob. I now have an understanding on the workings of local authority CT offices.

M

You are absolutely welcome and I'm glad to hear you got it all sorted. I'm somewhat baffled as to how they managed to issue a summons straight away without having sent any other reminders first, bizarre!

Your bafflement must have been the equal of mine when I opened the summons!!

The only thing I can think of, and this is pure speculation on my part, is that I know my next door neighbour is having financial difficulties following a break-up and is struggling with her bills. Maybe they punched the wrong door number in. But, like I said, that is purely speculation on my part.

Obviously I don't know how other councils work, but the one I work for uses specialist software. Your account shows any arrears and a 'status' (amongst a billion other things!) with 'status' referring to the recovery stage that the account is at - annual bill, reminder#1, reminder#2, final notice, summons, liability order, AoE, bailiffs etc etc. When a reminder run is done the system will generate a reminder for any account with an amount under 'arrears' and this then updates the 'status' i.e. from reminder#2 to final notice. If a system similar to this is used at your council then perhaps something went wrong with updating the account status - it skipped straight from annual bill to summons or something.