Thanks for the tip, and general advice. Sheffield City Council is one of those which have outsourced their back office stuff, so the complaint I submitted there will no doubt be examined rigorously! I emailed my councillor on Friday with a complaint as well, but have not heard anything back so I'll be chasing that up when I finish work. Interestingly, a simple Google search turns up a cached page on whatdotheyknow.co.uk which contains the Service Level Agreement between the council and Equita, which entertainingly contains a clause stating: "The EA Company will not advertise the fact it is providing services to Sheffield City Council under this agreement. " You can also find a couple of other SLAs with other councils this way. I don't know if this is common knowledge, but it's quite a useful document as one can imagine. In terms of my specific case, my parents will help me out with the full amount owed - I've agreed to pay 3 further instalments to Equita to clear the balance, although I may get in touch with the council to make the arrangement directly with them, as the SLA specifically states that I can do this. I fully appreciate how lucky I am in this regard. I'll be doing my best to use the SLA against Equita through my councillor and MP if necessary. I may also try the local press. Any other ideas for actions I could take most welcome!

Many thanks - apologies for putting it in the wrong place! Many thanks for the advice. That explains the difference in amounts - would there be any scope to claim that I only actually owe the council tax until the end of this month? I'll not have a car near the house until I'm sure they've called off the dogs - I've seen that come up on lots of similar threads both here and elsewhere. I'm reluctant to deal directly with Equita as I don't want to encourage the council in their use of them, but I guess that boat has long since sailed. I'll have to console myself with the complaint I put in, which no doubt will go nowhere. The enforcement notice is dated 09/10/15 and, as I said above I only received it on Thursday! I understand from further reading that the 'compliance' phase is supposed to last 14 days, but there's no legal requirement for this? You are of course correct, I shouldn't have been ignoring the letters. I am surprised I didn't receive a letter informing me of the court date, but I'll take that up with them later - it's not going to help me now in any case. This should be a (much-needed) kick up the backside for me.

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. Due to being something of an overgrown child, I have run up council tax arrears. Having been struggling financially recently, I have been taking something of a head in the sand approach to this, telling myself I would deal with it once my finances had settled down, which of course has not happened. I have therefore been ignoring letters from the council, which has led to this situation. I received on Thursday an Enforcement Notice from Equita bailiffs acting on behalf of the council, which is dated 09/10/15. This informed me that the Magistrates Court had granted a liability order against me on 14/08/15, and that I have until 17.30pm (sic) today to pay the amount in full (£3345) or to agree a payment arrangement. This shocked me somewhat, so I made contact with the company yesterday in order to try and sort something out. The gentleman I spoke to was less than helpful, demanding a payment of £850 immediately and, when I queried if he considered this reasonable he replied: "what were you expecting to pay, like a hundred a month? nobody would ever pay off their debts would they, eh?" I have complained both to the company and the council about this attitude, but that's sort of irrelevant as I have no way of proving this conversation took place. I spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to get in touch with the council to no avail. I'm in the fortunate position that my parents are able to help me with this, and they have transferred £1000 to me (and will help with the remainder of the debt), but I'm unsure exactly what is the best way to use this money. Ideally, I'd prefer to pay the council as opposed to the bullies from Equita - I can do this at the Post Office this morning. However, I suspect that this will not be enough to prevent a possible visit from the bailiff tomorrow, before I can get in touch with the council on Monday. Having looked back through the correspondence from the council, I have received 3 reminder notices in June (one for each financial year for which I owe money), giving me a deadline to pay and stating that if I did not make payment or arrange a payment plan by this date the council will "commence legal proceedings without further notice". The total amount stated on the reminder notices comes to £2,251.05, however - is it possible they've added on the total amount for council tax for this financial year to get the £3345 claimed on the enforcement notice? There is no breakdown on the enforcement notice itself. The next correspondence I received from the council is dated 17/08/15, and is an enforcement notice informing me that the liability order was granted and that if payment was not received by 02/09/15 they would instruct enforcement agents to recover the debt. I have NOT received any letter informing me in advance of the date of the hearing - I'm assuming this should have been sent to me in order to allow me the chance to defend myself? Regardless of any procedural error the council may have made or the complaints I have made to Equita and the council, I'm not sure whether to make a payment direct to the council or to do it via the bailiffs - from what I read part payment is not enough to stop them coming out, as they can then whack the visitation fee on top? Ideally I don't want a potential bailiff visit hanging over me tomorrow, but I can't see any way of preventing it given I can't get in touch with the council until Monday. Any advice would be most gratefully received - I appreciate this may be a bit of a ramble so if anything needs clarifying, please just ask. Many thanks, Ruaridh