Sheffield cc council tax fiasco.

[jan2002]

On the 30 January 2013 I along with around 6000 others in sheffield received a council tax summons to be heard on 1 February (they day after)

There was a public out cry about the notice the summonses gave before the hearings as reported in the local paper http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/business/sheffield-council-tax-blunder-causes-misery-1-5377303. Today I received a liability order what should I do !! ?

[ploddertom]

Are you one of those that still needs to pay?

[jan2002]

Hi...Yes I need to pay I don't have an issue with that, I had already made arrangement to pay. Is there a reason for the question ?

Either way the council have made an error and I object strongly to the added costs.

Thanks for your reply.

[ploddertom]

In my view you have not been given sufficient notification of the Hearing - 14 days is the requirement. The Council will probably argue that not their problem if the post was delayed but as there were so many you may have an argument to have it looked at. Have you been in touch with your local Councillor(s) - they are available 7 days per week up until 9pm as I understand it.

[jan2002]

Thank You Plodderton, I will try that.

[id6052]

Hi...Yes I need to pay I don't have an issue with that, I had already made arrangement to pay. Is there a reason for the question ?

 

Hi jan2002, i think the reason for the question would have related to the fact that different advice would have been appropriate depending upon whether you were one of those who:

 

1. should have been exempt
   
2. had already paid and had no outstanding balance
   
3. still had an outstanding council tax debt
   

I agree with Ploddertom that you should have had 14 days notice. Do you have the envelope still? If so, what date is the postmark on it?

[Guest]

are they still pursuing the LO?

if procedure not correctly followed, or liability/amount is wrong, then could try and get the LO set aside. could complain to the council. they have an option under s82 LGAct to 'quash' an LO, which they should do if incorrect procedure. otherwise there is 'common law' option re the mags

also, some brief cab info www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/d_council_tax_arrears.pdf

Edited February 9, 2013 by Ford

[Feebee_71]

One of the things that may be a stumbling block to the insufficient notice argument is that, according to the newspaper report linked above, these summons' were dated January 11th.

 

Lets hope people kept the envelopes and that they have a dated franking mark on them!!

 

Feebee_71

[ploddertom]

The chances are they will have been sent by UK Mail, TNT, DHL or similar.

[ss002d6252]

If the summons were posted by the correctly addressing and provided with the correct amount of postage the council are only responsible for handing them over for mail delivery .

 

Usually there will be some in a batch of summons that are delayed in the mail and the council can correctly state it was posted and therefore it is correct however if 6000 were delayed then it does suggest a major cockup and I'm very surprised the council try to initially push ahead.

 

The bigger problem seems to be that there is an admission that a lot of the summons were issued for accounts which were not in arrears and therefore it seems someone has really messed up as the systems have checks built in so that a summons cannot be issued on accounts with no balance without someone overriding it.