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ratherconcerned

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  1. Having spoken to the lovely jolly people at the Revenue Services Recovery Office, firstly to a normal clerk who answered the call and also to her manager as she was crap, but the out line is as follows: - The bill is for Council Tax (£1697.89) for 1st April 2008 – 1st April 2009 + £75.00 costs to court. - The have on record that they sent letters March and April for the first monthly instalments to each of us, and that is sufficient evidence to the court that they have taken appropriate actions to notify us. - I explained that this was not fair and we have not received such notifications – thus a loop hole in their justification to go to court. But apparently this is not enough to reverse the summons. Asking them to maybe try other methods of communication to advise people to pay a bill is returned with “we don’t have enough resources”, but that is rubbish when we are lumbered with a £75 cost because they’ve taken it to court! - They claim to have not received the letter asking for monthly instalments and therefore we were still registered as cash credit. - Therefore we have been presented 2 choices: o Pay the full amount before the hearing (which my housemates are unwilling to do). o Arrange to pay the amount, such as monthly, but incur a Liability Order. This also has an extra charge in addition which pays for them going to court on the 9th June, telling them our arrangement and them receiving a liability claim which basically says if we default on our payment they can enforce the authorities to collect payment. - i.e., they'll send around bailiffs. My house mate arranged to go down the liability order route, as they can't afford to pay it off up front. Is there anything bad about doing this? I'm really unsure of the ins and outs - I *think* this doesn't affect my credit rating, right? Also, what's to say that Tower Hamlets council don't royally screw up again and decide we haven't paid a montly direct debit? Will we get a visit from some bailiffs? Am I getting my knickers in a twist over nothing? I do intend to write to my councillor over this utter shambles of organisation though. Not that it'll change anything, but I'm just in awe at their utter incompetence. And this is coming from someone who works in the public sector!
  2. This morning I wandered downstairs to see three identical letters sitting on my doormat, addressed to myself and my two house mates. I open mine to discover that we have each been issued with a court summons from Tower Hamlets Council for non payment of Council Tax. This comes as a complete shock and surprise to all of us, as we haven't received any bill or warning whatsoever. We moved into the property in November 2007, and paid up for the Council Tax we owed for the 2007/2008 financial year in February this year (£600 or so). At the same time, my house mate sent off a form to request monthly payment of our council tax to avoid being hit by lump sums in future. Since then, we haven't heard a squeak from the Council until this morning. As they don't open their repayments office until Monday morning, could anyone give me some advice/reassurance? They are demanding each of us pay £1.7k immediately (the full annual amount, I believe), and none of us have that money. I'd be more than happy to settle the first two months of this financial year and then pay the rest monthly (as we originally requested). I'm concerned though, as I've read that some councils refuse to negotiate payment by instalments once they've issued a court summons, and that going to court is unavoidable unless you cough up the full amount + costs. I'm not disputing the debt at all - my problem is that we weren't told in any way, shape or form until this morning's letter. We'd tried to set up monthly payments previously, but received no correspondence in response to the form we sent off. *sigh* As an aside, is the council tax total per dwelling or per occupant? I previously assumed it was per dwelling, but we've each received a separate summons...this whole matter is very confusing and rather worrying to say the least!
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