Hi everyone

I’m not sure what’s happened but my council are taking me, my brother and sister to court over unpaid council tax.

I’ll upload the documents so you can see what they’ve said.

But I’m certain the amount they're quoting is wrong.

My council asked me to increase the amount we pay each month around the beginning of this year.

I think March or April but not too sure.

I changed the amount we send to cover what they said we needed too.

Then I didn’t hear anything until August this year where they sent a bill that didn’t make sense.

It made out that we hadn’t sent anything to them.

Now at this point I’d just lost my job so I ended up burying my head in the sand why I looked for a new job thinking it’s wrong and they’ll work it out.

Again didnt hear anything until the 2nd of November when we got a court document saying we need to go a hearing on the 22nd of November 2018.

I’ve only managed to find a job in the last week so haven’t been able to get on here to upload it when we got it.

The only reason I can think of for them saying we’re not paying is that the payment could have the wrong account reference on the standing order.

When we moved into this place at the end of October 2017.

The same council contacted us about payment with us being in the same area.

I updated the payment on the standing order we had for our old place with the same account reference.

I did this because they didn’t change it on the letter we got when we moved into are new place.

But the letters I’ve got since August have a different account reference on them.

I can’t see it making a difference though because until August this year I didn’t get anything saying we hadn’t payed or owed anymore then what we’ve been paying.

Would appreciate any help on this.

Thanks

Scanned Documents.pdf

moved to the Local Authority, Council Tax and Business Rates Issues forum.

the council are going for a liability order which is std practice when you don't pay.

I would suspect that all of your payments have been going off the previous years CTAX debt [2017-18] as you had an arrangement for that and there is still an outstanding balance...

and you've not set up a payment plan nor paid anything for this years [apr 2018-apr 2019] CTAX bill. hence the differing numbers.

there isn't really an awful lot you can do to stop them sadly if the above is true.

you need to ring them and check

and also check if you were entitled to any relief during your time out of word for either period.

it might be best to get a payment plan in place soonest as before you know it you'll have bailiffs involved and an extra £75 fee and if you still don't sort it and they come around another £235 added.

dx

Hi dx

I’m going to ring them tomorrow to get a list of payments I’ve made and what too need to work it out ASAP.

I don’t know what a liability order is and don’t want to go to court because I’ll probably make it worse not knowing what I need to say or do.

I can’t see us still owing last year up to this month.

I’ve been paying all the way up to the 1st of November this year a £109.

And didn’t get anything last year about the payments.

Maybe we’ve been put in the wrong band or something.

I’ll update here when I’ve spoke to them tomorrow.

I want to pay don’t want anymore fees or bailiffs at the door.

What I don’t get is they say we owe the same in November as we did in August but we’ve made 3 payments of £109 since then so where is the money going?

me thinks someones got their wires crossed here.

you don't have to goto court no

but it would be nice if the LO was not autogranted as that would save you their fee on that as well

good luck!!

dx

now it the correct forum cause I forgot its title

you'll see other like threads here now..

dx

Something really wrong xd

I've just been going over the bank statements to see how much we've paid them. And from the 21 0ct 2017 to the 01 Nov 2018 we've paid £1,305.45

There court document only says we owe £1137.20 and that's for up to 31 Mar 2019.

We've overpaid them by £168.25 and we shouldn't of paid that much by now anyway it's only Nov 2018. They must of mixed our payments up with someone else's account I need to ring them in the morning to sort this all out.

its certainly looking better and better the more you delve in.

well done.

dx

I know dx

I've been trying to work it out but I think they owe us about £540 or something. I'll upload a copy of my statements to make sure I've got this right.

dhalifax-converted (1).pdf

Any arears for previous years?

You say you just got a job. Have you had council tax relief whist unemployed?

No we were all paid up when we left our last house and moved into here.

And I have had tax relief whilst I’ve been off work but they’ve only worked it out last month.

Been unemployed since the end of September.

And to think been struggling to pay everything then stressing over them saying we still owe money and we’ve been overpaying for months.

Just hope they pay back what’s been overpaid.

Could really do with £500 to get though my first month back in work and Christmas.

We should of only paid up to November so hope they don’t oh we’ll just keep it and you don’t need to pay now until March or April.

if you owe money on this year they'll transfer it over, but its looking good.

I donÂ’t know what a liability order is and donÂ’t want to go to court because IÂ’ll probably make it worse not knowing what I need to say or do.

You can't make it worse - the court either grant the order or they don't - there are very few defences to it being granted.

The liability order would give the council the powers to enforce payment if required.

Standing Orders have always been a problem with council tax as they were rarely updated by the council tax payer (the council cannot update the payment references) so they ended up going to all sorts of places

- you need to check what reference number you have supplied on the standing order, if no reference was given then the council will put the money in to a holding account as they'll have no idea who paid it.

Wherever the payments are going they are not being credited to the most recent council tax account.