Council Tax for address I never lived at

[mline-cag]

Hello all,

 

At my work address I have just received a letter from the Council saying I had Council Tax arrears for a given address. I have never lived at the address and was living at my parents home during the dates stated.

 

This is the first contact I have had about the Council Tax arrears.

 

The worst part is that the letter was to inform me that the council are requesting deductions from my wages directly from my employer!

 

I checked with my works finance officer and they have indeed received a request from the Council.

 

Question 1: If the Council think I am the debtor and they have contacted my employer and myself at my work address, why have they gone immediately for the wage deduction? Why have they not asked me about the debt and given me a chance to explain? I now have the embarasement of my employer receiving this request.

 

Question 2: How do I go about proving this is not my debt? What if someone has used my identity in the past and caused this debt. How can I prove I lived somewhere else at that time (about 3 years ago). I now live with my girlfriend but my parents are still at my previous address.

 

Question 3: what can I do immediately to stop this action of deductions from my wages. Looking at the explanation of deductions % I will be hit with a £500 deduction in the first month (not something I have budgeted for and can afford). I have not yet phoned the Council, I thought I would check with you guys first.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

M

[Guest Zooman]

Not advice I often give out but you need to go and see a solicitor, most have a drop in hour one day a week.

[mline-cag]

Thank you for the quick response and advice Zooman.

 

Could I please ask what it is that makes you suggest a Solicitor?

 

Do you think I will not get much joy if I try to deal with this myself?

 

Thanks

M

[Guest Zooman]

I think they will mess you around and still take your money

[bathgatebuyer]

What evidence do they have that you lived at that address? Do you have copies of bank statements, etc, for the time that you lived at your parent's address? Was your driving licence registered there? Has someone contacted the Council and given your details? Did the person actually living there have a similar name to you and that is why you are being chased? Was your driving licence / Uni / wage slips, etc, registered at your parent's address?

 

What about speaking to your local Councillor? Turn up at their surgery. The Council staff will have 2 days to respond to any query that your Councillor raises internally, whereas us mere members of the public are lucky to be on the '10 working day' reponse time.

 

It sounds remarkably similar to some guff I have had to deal over both Council Tax (sent bills to an address that didn't exit in a town that wasn't even in the county that I gave them the details for - then issued a summary warrant against me even though their records proved that I gave them the correct address and some bozo decided to enter into the system completely wrongly!), or when I got chased by a DCA over a gas bill for an address I never lived at purely because my name was similiar to the person they were chasing.

 

In the second instance they used a tracing company to find me, and they based their whole pursuit of me on the basis that I had the same first initial and surname as the person they were looking for. Seriously, it does not take much for these companies to start action with little or no foundation.

 

Speak to your MP, your Councillor, arrange to see the Head of Finance at your local authority, write via Recorded Delivery to all parties concerned and provide anything you can by way of evidence whether it be bank statements or even a written statement signed by your parents saying that you were there at during the dates concerned.

 

I'm no lawyer, but I have been put in a situation where these bampots have made my life hell and scared the life out of me. It was resolved but it did take a few days of my time off work, a meeting with my Councillor (who was by coincidence Convenor of Finance at the Council and able to do something quite quickly), a call to my MPs office and a fax sent by them to the Council, as well as turning up at the reception of the Council Tax HQ and telling them I would be contacting my local press (distribution half a million!) if it was not sorted. All this was on a Friday afternoon, and after a worry filled weekend, I had a letter of apology from the Head of Finance hand delivered on the Monday morning and it was resolved.

 

Don't know if that helps, but I would use every resource available to you to have it resolved. If the Council Tax Officer themselves will not listen to you, then it's all guns blazing. Don't be afraid of using the 'big guns' when required. Although politicians are on the whole useless, you can't over-estimate how rapidly something which has a VIP's (as they are known in Councils) name on it can get resolved. They communicate with the head of the department in question, and it bypasses everyone elses case to get a response.

 

Good luck.