brother pays his council tax every month in cash at those paypoint machines. i know its by the 1st of each month but this month he was a day late. the 1st was a friday and he paid in cash on sat 2nd april being a saturday.

this morning he received a summons to the local magistrate court for an application for a liability order with £55 costs.

this shows that these liability order summons come from the council and not the court as we are talking of only a few days from payment to summons

WHERE DOES HE STAND WITH THIS

1. HE IS NOT IN AREARS, ONLY ONE DAY LATE IN MAKING THE PAYMENT

2/ WHERE DOES HE STAND WITH THE £55 COSTS ISSUE

3. WHAT ABOUT PRE ACTION PROTOCOL GOING STARIGHT IN WITH THE LIABILITY ORDER APPLICATION

4/ how can the council charge costs as the bill was paid prior to the liability order application

5/ there is no debt as that was the last payment for 2010-2011 tax year he made, dated april to april

i can see whats happened is that he has made the payment as i was with him when he did but the machine is late updating the council records. he paid by the paypoint operator scannng the barcode on the council tax bill.

i doubt even paying by direct debit would be a quicker method of payment

if it was me i would go to court and tell the magistrate that the council tax bill has been paid but need advice people

if he has cleared the summonsed debt, simply contact the council and they can cancel the summons

 

[/b][/u]1. HE IS NOT IN AREARS, ONLY ONE DAY LATE IN MAKING THE PAYMENT

2/ WHERE DOES HE STAND WITH THE £55 COSTS ISSUE

3. WHAT ABOUT PRE ACTION PROTOCOL GOING STARIGHT IN WITH THE LIABILITY ORDER APPLICATION

4/ how can the council charge costs as the bill was paid prior to the liability order application

5/ there is no debt as that was the last payment for 2010-2011 tax year he made, dated april to april

 

If this was his last payment for 2010/2011 then I would suspect the Council are correct in what they have done. Most Councils accept only 10 monthly instalments meaning the last should have been paid on 1 January 2011. There are some who will allow the full 12 months but even there that means it should have been paid on 1 March 2011. There is also another possibility that the monies he has paid have been put towards this years CT bill - 2011/2012. He really needs to contact the Council to see where his payment has gone, I would also suspect that sometme within the last year he has been served with a reminder - or two - that he has been late paying.

PT

A Court Summons cannot be issued after only 1 reminder unless the amount due has not been paid within 7 days of the issuing of the reminder.

What I usually find (I work in a council tax dept) is that where a summons is issued so late in the year it is down to the fact that there has already been a reminder issued earlier in the year. Some councils will issue 2 reminders and a final notice but the final notice is not mandatory in all cases.

The council is the only one who can confirm what has happened but if he has only paid the instalments on the 1st of the month then he will not have made payment in time as the paypoint payments take 3-7 days to clear and it should be received by the council no later than the 1st of the month. There may also be an issue with him paying in march as most councils (although some will) do not give instalment schemes past january (as per the statutory instalment plan)