Assistance please for a friend. Liability Orders.

[silverfox1961]

Morning

 

A friend of mine is having a multitude of issues with her local council mainly due to not disclosing changes of circumstances leading to overpayments of housing benefit and council tax benefit.

 

This is just for the council tax.

 

In the first instance, her local council did a recalculation of benefits after I got involved but for the years 2013-14 they have presented a bill for nearly £500.

 

After some communication with them, they have stated that they will not be able to agree a payment arrangement until a liability order is in place. In this area, a LO adds another £75 to the bill. Surely they should be willing to enter negotiations before it gets anywhere near a court??

 

Another small(ish) issue was that the council sent her a final notice for her 2014-15 demanding full payment within 7 days except they posted the letter out via a third party and I got the letter with 2 days to spare. They threatened to get a liability order which would incur another £75 for a debt totalling less than £12. Surely they should not have done this!

 

Complaint letter done and will be posted later

[outlawla]

Paragraphs 34 and 51 in Nicolson v Tottenham Magistrates would seem arguable. The problem is getting the council to appreciate that.

 

 

34. As a matter of straightforward construction of Regulation 34(7) that means that the Magistrates must be satisfied:

 

i) that the local authority has actually incurred those costs;

 

ii) that the costs in question were incurred in obtaining the liability order; and

 

iii)

that it was reasonable for the local authority to incur them

.

 

 

51. If the necessary causal link is established to the satisfaction of the court then the next question is whether the costs claimed have been "reasonably" incurred. It may be that the method by which the costs are calculated demonstrates this without the need for further evidence; but there may be individual cases in which it would be open to the respondent to argue that the costs were not reasonably incurred, for example, if it was not reasonable for the local authority to take steps to enforce payment, or if the costs which were incurred were excessive – e.g. if the local authority sent a QC along to argue a simple point of law in the Magistrates' Court.

[Bailiff Advice]

Outlawla, the information that you have posted relates to the question about the liability order costs. My reading of the query from Silverfox is whether or not the local authority can accept a payment arrangement WITHOUT having to resort to actually having a Liability Order issued. I know that this is a subject that you will very likely know the answer to.

[outlawla]

The Council can do whatever it likes (so yes it can make an arrangement without obtaining a court order). The billing authority is not legally obliged to make complaint to the Magistrates court when a taxpayer defaults, it has discretion.

 

My initial post is relevant because the council may make an application for a liability order (to protect its interest) but without costs because a Magistrates' court SHOULD NOT consider in those circumstances it reasonable for the authority to take steps to enforce payment.

 

EDIT:

 

Notice the term "SHOULD NOT" above. I doubt any Magistrates' court would take any notice of whether it was reasonable for the authority to take steps to enforce payment in practice.

[silverfox1961]

Wow! thank you so much outlawla. When I read your reply I didn't quite understand but now, having re read the underlined bits, I see where you are coming from.

 

Should the council decide to issue the summons, I will make sure we both are there to dispute it and the costs as we are more than prepared to enter into negotiations with them.

 

Initially, my friend will pay an extra £20 per month on top of her normal CT and I have made that clear in my letter to them.

 

I am sending a SAR to them as well which may show some discrepancies in their workings.

[brassnecked]

I think the council can set up an arrangement without a LO, but will want the extra cash involved, and the ease of passing the debt to their tame bailiffs to enforce if a payment is missed, or am I just cynical.

[outlawla]

Regulation 21(5)

 

(5) A billing authority and a liable person may agree that the amount mentioned in regulation 20(2) which is required to be paid under a notice to which regulation 20(1) applies shall be paid in such manner as is provided by the agreement.

[sillygirl1]

These one-sided regulations really need to be sorted out - I reckon in 60% (at least) of the liability orders issues people already ARE paying the councils what they CAN.

 

Liability orders, as I frequently say, should NOT be issued until the end of the financial year and should only be issued where NO communication and payment have been received.

[silverfox1961]

Final Notice today except they are now demanding over £100 less that before. I don't think they know exactly what is owing. I have sent them an email raising the points raised above and told them we would be attending the magistrates should they proceed.

A formal Complaint was received by them on the same date of the Final Notice so I hope they have crossed in the post.

[silverfox1961]

A little update.

 

I had a response to the formal complaint and as expected, they said they did nothing wrong however on the same day, I received a letter from the council tax department. The same people who said they couldn't make any arrangement until a liability order was in place.

 

They have merged the amount from 2013/14 and this years council tax and this means she will be paying £188 a month for 4 months. This she can do so long as she continues with her usual overtime.

 

Some councils seem to think they can ride roughshod over people so it makes sense to complain. I would call it a result. No court involvement.

 

Just the SAR to come back now and I can check what has been done with her accounts and try to decipher the codes to see if other errors have been made (on both sides)

[Bailiff Advice]

 

I would call it a result.

 

And so would I.

 

Well done !!!

[Ruleoflaw]

It would seem that what the council did to this lady was outside their legal power (ultra vires) in terms of their use of the statutory instruments (Regulation). Was the power beyond the main statute, is my question. A Regulation cannot have more power than its deriving power, which in this case is the Local Government Finance Act 1992. If it is doing this to her, your friend that is, besides a success for this lady they are nevertheless likely to use this liability Order threat against others notwithstanding the problem with exaggerated costs: Nicolson [2015] High Court authority. I had a problem with the Civil Service pertaining to 'DWP' and as I knew their arrangements were not only wrong against self, it was obvious it would be seriously detrimental on others in my situation. To cut a long story short, I referred matter to the Parliament Ombudsman which effect was that DWP changed their systems to where 2 decision makers (experienced regional supervisors) make the decision.

[brassnecked]

Good result Silverfox well done.