hi all , a little help please with my council tax question.

i paid my ct bill in july for june and july,paid in aug and sep. sat 25 sep i get a court summons for non payment.the june, july payment i made to the council over the phone was not prosseced by the council even though i thought everything was paid up, as soon as i received the summons i paid the balance off immidiately.phoned the council and explained to them that they did not take my payment in july. the council are now demanding full payment and costs for they're own faulti, i'm refusing to pay the costs and the full councill tax in one payment. would i be right to attend court and defend the action brought by them and claim costs against the council. any help thanks.

You won't be able to claim any costs as this will be a liability hearing and if you owe nothing, then it won't be granted. There will be a council rep there and they will no doubt stop it

going into court, or attempt to, but you have to agree, or they can cancel it there and then.

You would be best going as it's not a civil court as such and no record is made or a ccj awarded, it is just a yea or nae that you owe tax or you don't.

Have you had any reminders from the council ?

They are supposed to send you a reminder to pay within 14 days and if you don't they send another which will also say that they will attend apply to the court for a liablity order if not paid in another 14 days.

Firstly, I presume they have told you that it was the payment you made for June and July which has not been processed? You aren't just assuming this? I also guess you mean you paid on a card?

Secondly, did you get a receipt for this payment? Have you checked your bank statements to see whether this payment has left your bank account? And by 'left' I mean permanently, it didn't go out and then come back?

If the money has definitely left your account and not bounced back then the council need to investigate where this money has gone. This shouldn't be a difficult task, and should take no longer than a few minutes. If this is the case then it's likely that the money was accidentally processed to a different account number, in which case the council can transfer your payment over to your account and they should cancel the summons because it was issued in error as you'd paid.

However, if the money never left your account it might be more difficult. Do you actually speak to someone when you call up and pay or is it an automated service? If you actually spoke to someone, did they tell you it had gone through?

thank you for your comments.i phoned the council on the 13 july and made the payment with a debit card and the girl taking the payment didnt seem to now how to processe the transaction, went off to see a supervisor came back and said she dosen't know if its gone through or not and to look at my bank statement in 4weeks time. i received a letter saying my payment was late dated 12 july,but i had already cleared the outstanding amount by the time i received their letter. next thing i know is 25 sep i get a summons for non payment for june &july ,i clear the full amount immidately but iam refusing to pay the£36 in charges,as it was not my fault and the council wont budge either so it looks like court .what should i do. many thanks

I agree, that is pretty shoddy and they are at fault. Their advice was rubbish. If you had to wait 4 weeks before you would know if your payment went through or not, and it didn't go through, then you would definitely get a reminder. (I actually think they were wrong in giving you a time frame of 4 weeks as that's quite excessive, debit card payments shouldn't take that long to go through - imagine the problems there would be if they did!). It's pretty clear to me that they are in the wrong here and that summons should be retracted.

Put your complaint in writing and make it very clear that it's a complaint, if you haven't done already. They should take it more seriously than just a phone call. If they still don't budge then you should be able to appeal.

Lastly, have you checked to make sure the money didn't leave your account?