In July of this year I moved address and notified the council tax department accordingly. I own the property I moved from but informed them that I was living elsewhere in the UK. Over a month later, I received an email from somebody withing the department, asking for further information which I replied to the day after.

On 11th October, I received a reply saying that a summons had been issued but would be withdrawn as all the correspondence had been sent to the old address and that a revised bill should be received at my new address in the next few days.

I then get a summons sent to the new address (before receiving a new bill) which they now will not withdraw!

Which defence do I use? The one that seems to apply on the back of the summons is 'the amount has not been asked for in the way set out by law' but I can't find any details of this.

I would really appreciate some help as the court hearing is for 9th November and also, can I request for the hearing to be at a local court to where I live now?

Many thanks

In July of this year I moved address and notified the council tax department accordingly. I own the property I moved from but informed them that I was living elsewhere in the UK. Over a month later, I received an email from somebody withing the department, asking for further information which I replied to the day after.

 

On 11th October, I received a reply saying that a summons had been issued but would be withdrawn as all the correspondence had been sent to the old address and that a revised bill should be received at my new address in the next few days.

 

I then get a summons sent to the new address (before receiving a new bill) which they now will not withdraw!

 

Which defence do I use? The one that seems to apply on the back of the summons is 'the amount has not been asked for in the way set out by law' but I can't find any details of this.

 

I would really appreciate some help as the court hearing is for 9th November and also, can I request for the hearing to be at a local court to where I live now?

 

Many thanks

There are no 'specified' defences as such in council tax law - as far as defences go a magistrate cannot consider anything which would fall under the jurisdiction of the valuation tribunal. Any dispute over the issuing of documentation and whether the legislative process has been followed in this certainly falls within the remit of the magistrate however and not that of the tribunal.

The council's argument will likely be that all documents were correctly served at the time to the last known address and that, as they have just been informed, they re-issued the summons to ensure it was served. You would need to argue that the summons cannot be correct as the documents it is based on, the demand notice and reminder, were not served correctly as the address was wrong.

I would expect that the magistrates would side with the council unless you can show the council knew they were not sending documents to the last known address - service just requires it to be sent to that address. It would be difficult to argue that service was wrong on the basis of information that was provided only after the event (which is what they seem to believe) however you have a good argument if you can show you notified them of the address changed and documents were issued after that date.

You would, at least initially, be better off contacting the council and arguing that they'd told you it would be withdrawn and the action re-started. Also raise the issue of the address having been provided and not used.

I would really appreciate some help as the court hearing is for 9th November and also, can I request for the hearing to be at a local court to where I live now?

In all the years I worked in council tax I've never known a case to transferred to another court (or even for it to be requested), I'm not even sure if there is a procedure for it to be done as council tax is an odd bedfellow with the magistrates' court when it comes to procedure.