Council tax straight from salary

[petethemanc]

Ok ill explain what happened and hopefully someone can help with some advice urgently if possible. We lived at an address and then moved three streets up. Now......wrongly i assumed that the council would carry on taking the money from the same account for the new property and calculate the difference (if any....this is the only time ive had to pay council tax as i have always been in the services) i generally do not check my accounts as there is never anything uintoward and the same bills always leave etc etc.

 

Now i received a letter from the council saying that 2 payments of £140 were due.....at that time i could only pay one so paid that immediately on the phone. They were to send a letter out so that i could work out a repayment plan for the remainder. I work a lot of hours and my partner does not work and we have two small children. Yes i should have kept track of the letter that never came from the council, due to our wedding in November (which we have scrimped and scraped for) and other daily problems.

 

Now, last month i noticed online on my pay statement that £400 had gone out of my salary at source. I contacted my pay dept (for a major communications company) and they could not tell me what it was for but raised an issue and gave me a ref number. Total deuctions for that month took me to £1200 with myself fiance and two children to ffed for the month and £525 rent. .......

 

Two weekd later nothing had materialised from my pay dep so i rang them back.....they had lost the inital complaint raised by myself and issued another. So......to make up for last month i hammered as much overtime as possible........i checked my pay statement online again for the up coming salary.......nearly £500 this time which also wiped out ALL the overtime i did. Pay dept still had no answers, so i contacted the council tax on the off chance, they confirmed that they had requested the money from source via the courts.

 

Now i promise this is the truth completely, i never never recieved anything from the council stating this would happen OR from my pay department asking ingoings/outgoings. Now i have also found that there is a protected earnings law?? where the salary must not go below £1500 p/m.

 

This has happened to me on two consecutive months now and is really putting us in financial hardship, and yet i never owed that much so can not understand why they are taking so much off me.

 

Please can someone help me here, is there anything i can do (apart from contact the council recovery which was advised to me byy someone at the council, i have done this and they have not replied to me)

Edited August 28, 2013 by citizenB
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[petethemanc]

Bump......Anyone?

[dpick]

Hi no advise just to say the experts will be along later

 

dpick

[Bombaymix]

As above. The experts will be along soon.

 

A quick google about protected earnings conflicts with the amount you claim unfortunately. From what I can work out its actually only £130 per week rather than £1500 a month.

 

The experts will be here shortly though to suitable advise.

 

Regards

 

BM

[petethemanc]

As above. The experts will be along soon.

 

A quick google about protected earnings conflicts with the amount you claim unfortunately. From what I can work out its actually only £130 per week rather than £1500 a month.

 

The experts will be here shortly though to suitable advise.

 

Regards

 

BM

 

On the CAPS letter it says "you must not deduct any money which would reduce your employees net pay below £1500.00 per month(the protected earnings rate)

[citizenB]

How could they take money from your salary without there being a request for an attachment of earnings ?

 

I have attached the CAB fact sheet on attachment of earnings - what they can and cannot take.

 

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/debt_w/debt_action_your_creditor_can_take_e/creditor_takes_money_from_your_wages.htm

[citizenB]

http://www.northampton.gov.uk/info/200028/council_tax/996/council_tax_attachment_of_earnings

 

This one I think shows how much they can take in relation to earnings.

 

It looks as though from what you say you earn £1,500 per month, they can take 17%

[ploddertom]

I'll put this in the Bailiff Forum as there are others there who may be able to help.

[tomtubby]

I think that you will find that the CAPS leaflet does not refer to cases where a Liability Order has been issued.

 

There are many "fact sheets" on the web but I tend to use the only mentioned by "Citizenb" as it provides an excellent "calculator tool" which will use the information provided on line to calculate the amount of deductions.

 

PS: A local authority cannot have more than TWO Liability Orders operating at any one time.

.

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http://www.northampton.gov.uk/info/200028/council_tax/996/council_tax_attachment_of_earnings

[tomtubby]

Have you been able to sort out what has happened to the Attachment of Earnings Order?

 

From the figures that you have given it would seem that the amount deducted is far more tha the statutory rate.