Concil Tax Liability Order - Help

[CBR600F]

We recently received a Notice of Liability Order for non payment of council tax.

 

What has happen is my wife has buried her head in the sand and as a result I now find that the £100 a month we had been paying a month has been used to pay off the arrears from last year. BTW these were caused by the council giving us Council Tax credits and then taking them away 6 months later!

 

On the letter from the council it states that we are required by law to return the questionnaire overleaf and that it is a criminal of fence not to.

 

Is this true?

What happens if we don't?

What happens if we do not give them all the information they want?

How long do we have?

 

 

Thanks in advance.

[lizziekwitta]

Speak to the council and see if they will accept an arrangement to pay off the arears. You will probably need to send the form back or they will just pass your account to Bailiffs who will start adding more fees and cause more problems. Best thing is to keep it with the council and speak to them asap.

[CBR600F]

Thanks lizziekwitta but as they have ignored 8 letters so far I am not sure whether talking to them will make any difference! They just have it there minds that we can afford to pay! Well we can't even keep up with the mortgage at present so I don't see how the council can expect more than what we have already offered (in the letters).

The probable outcome is we will lose our house, they will have to put us up and I will then be able to claim housing benefit and they will be happy because with housing benefit and no mortgage I would be able to afford the council tax!

[hallowitch]

On the letter from the council it states that we are required by law to return the questionnaire overleaf and that it is a criminal of fence not to.

 

Is this true? YES

What happens if we don't? You will receive a fine and i think court/administration costs also

What happens if we do not give them all the information they want? As above

How long do we have? not quite sure 7/14 days

 

when i find the legislation i will post it up for you

[hallowitch]

Offences 56

 

56.—(1) A person shall be guilty of an offence if, following a request under paragraph (2)(b) of regulation 36, he is under a duty to supply information and—

(a)he fails without reasonable excuse to supply the information in accordance with that regulation, or

(b)in supplying information in purported compliance with that regulation he makes a statement which is false in a material particular or recklessly makes a statement which is false in a material particular.

(2) Subject to paragraph (3), a person shall be guilty of an offence if, following the service on him of a copy of an attachment of allowances order or an attachment of earnings order, he is under a duty to comply with the order by virtue of regulation 37(3) (including that provision as applied for the purposes of attachment of allowances orders by regulation 44(7)) and he fails to do so.

(3) It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under paragraph (2) to prove that he took all reasonable steps to comply with the order.

(4) A person shall be guilty of an offence if he is under a duty to notify another person under regulation 39(2) and (3) or (4) and (5) (including those provisions as applied for the purposes of attachment of allowances orders by regulation 44(7)), regulation 39(6) and (7) or regulation 40 and—

(a)he fails without reasonable excuse to notify the other person in accordance with the provision concerned, or

(b)in notifying the other person in purported compliance with the provision concerned he makes a statement which he knows to be false in a material particular or recklessly makes a statement which is false in a material particular.

(5) A person guilty of an offence under paragraph (1)(a) or (4)(a) shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.

(6) A person guilty of an offence under paragraph (1)(b), (2) or (4)(b) shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

 

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/613/contents/made

[outlawla]

On the letter from the council it states that we are required by law to return the questionnaire overleaf and that it is a criminal of fence not to.

 

Is this true?

What happens if we don't?

What happens if we do not give them all the information they want?

How long do we have?

 

I don't know if this is any help or relates to your particular situation, but I have an excel spread sheet (below) with all kinds of council tax related data, unfortunately it relates to 2007-2008. If you look down the columns BH and BI of the document, I would think this relates to the questionnaire you're talking about. The YES, NO or ** relates to:

 

1. Yes they do implement the penalties.

2. No they don't implement the penalties.

3. ** Have not supplied this information.

 

This is my interpretation of it anyway. What do you think?

Copy of Print_082582009411627.xls

[CBR600F]

Thanks outlawla,

 

Very interesting spreadsheet!

I would agree that column BH is for the questionnaire they sent out.

Apparently my council doesn't prosecute but I suspect they will first try the IUC route to try and scare the s*** out of us - won't work.

 

The thing that really P***** me off is that they already have had every f*** detail of our finances when we applied for Council Tax Credits!

 

Well we will fill it in anyway not sure if I want them to know our employers but they know this anyway so what is the point?

[ploddertom]

It will be to try and trip you up. If you contradict what you have already given they'll assume you are like Nero.

 

PT