some advice needed regarding council tax from last year!

[miarosemum]

for the last 3 years, i have worked 16 hours a week, am a single parent of a 4 year old and receive working tax credits, child tax credit and childcare tax credit. i also receive housing benefit towards my private rent and full council tax benefit. my previous council tax bill dated 17 march 2010 for the last year showed that i received full benefit and single occupancy and amount payable for me was £0. my circumstances did not and have not changed apart from the fact i moved into a new property to rent on 1st december 2010. i notified the council of this move as i had moved to a new council, so that my housing benefit etc would stop.
three weeks ago, i had a random email from a company telling me that they were acting on behalf of hounslow council and that i owe them £240 in unpaid council tax!! my bill clearly states my monthly payments are £0 and have been for the last three years. i immediately responded and the man said he would contact the council and get them to investigate. i then get another letter from the council to confirm that i left the property on 1st december 2010, but that i still owed them £240, (£93 of that being costs for summons!!!!). but on the same letter states liability for 2011/2012 even though am not living there! can someone please tell me what is my next cause of action as my previous landlady contacted me tonight to tell me a court letter has come through at the previous address for the unpaid council tax! how ashamed did i feel!

[prh47bridge]

I would write to the council and ask them how you can possibly have arrears of £240 when the total amount owed for the year was £0 as you receive full Council Tax Benefit. I would also ask them how you can have any liability for a property for 2011/12 when they have acknowledged that you stopped living there in 1st December 2010.

Sounds to me like an administrative cock up. I'm guessing they stopped the Council Tax Benefit on 1st December 2010 but didn't cancel the Council Tax.

[Collaborate]

They are all sadly deluded cretins. Do them one letter, keep a copy, then if they do summons you, have a free day off work safe in the knowledge that they'll be ordered to reimburse you for out of pocket expenses. They never take notice of what people write to them about. Every council must be the same.

[miarosemum]

Thank you for your advice, they are deluded cretins and completely contradict themselves! And a day off work at their expense sounds a good thing!

[Collaborate]

If they have actually summonsed you, you'll have to apply to the court to overturn the liability order. The idiots will have served you with the court paperwork at your old address.

I believe magistrates clerks are used to crap council enforcement procedures and should be sympathetic. What a waste of public money.

I think that the basis of their thinking is that they never trust that what anyone tells them is the truth. The fact is that you moved to a different council area. Whilst you lost your benefit, if no one else registered as a tenant on the property they will have continued to bill you until they receive a letter signed by the pope and the queen confirming you've actually moved out. Thankfully the court starts from the assumption that you're telling the truth.

[miarosemum]

Exactly! When I left my old address, I immediately filled an online form in to notify them of my change of address to stop my council tax and housing benefit! And yet the numpties still send the court letter to my old address I left in november!! My financial circumstances have not changed whatsoever, and I still receive full council tax benefit at my new address with a different council. New tenants did move in after me and my old landlady confirmed they have been billed correctly by the council so I am absolutley dumbfounded as to where this money I supposedly owe is steming from??

[Collaborate]

Speak to the clerk of the court where the summons was issued. Find out what you need to do. Then report back.

[miarosemum]

Yes will do..landlady said she would put summons in post for me to new address, will update soon!

[miarosemum]

Yes will do..landlady said she would put summons in post for me to new address, will update soon!

[Collaborate]

If it's just the summons, then at least you don't have to apply to set aside the judgment.

Can you get a copy of the other bill for the new tenant, covering the same period you're being charged for?

I wouldn't trust them if they, before the hearing, admit they've made an error. I had them do that once for a client of mine, said we needn't go to court, that they'd write in to withdraw the summons, and when I rang the court on the day of the hearing the court hadn't received anything. Just take with you all the paperwork you have, and a copy of your payslip or contract of employment showing how much money you'll lose having a day off.

The proof you'll need is that you told the treasury, not just the CT benefit people, that you'd left.

[scaryteacher]

Thank you so much for labelling all CTAX officers as cretins. That makes everyone who has ever worked for the CTAX offices around the country so much better.

You cannot assume that by writing to HB to get your benefit stopped that the CTAX office (which is separate) will know that you have moved unless you tell them. For all they know, you might have got a full time job, or won the lottery and no longer need to be in receipt of HB or CTB.

Did you write to the CTAX office as opposed to the Benefit Office and record the delivery?

The reason for the amount due may be that the CTB has been stopped from 01/12, but that new tenants did not move in until later, and thus you are held liable for that period of time. The CTAX office can only act on the information that is given, as the staff are not psychics.

[fluffles]

our council tax office are terribly behind with their records but also, sorry scaryteacher they selectively read correspondence i believe deliberately. EVERY time i have written to tell them of my new address and that i am a sole occupant due a 25% discount they have managed to read half the letter and issue me a bill but EVERY time forget(?) to give me the discount.

also, this year, i took my flat back from my tenant on 31st March to put on the market and filled out a DD for 1 Aprl 2011 to 31 Mar 2012... they attempted to use this DD to take £250 from my account from Jan 2011 to March 2011!!!! Even though the person living in the flat during that period was not me and had registered student exemption. We have proof she did this.

i have been referred to debt collectors twice by our council, despite the fact i've never missed a payment in my life and have sometimes gone far out of my way to try to pay despite their lack of ability to send me a bill.

i don't doubt that they have a hard job, and that many people try to evade the tax, but they don't make their life any easier. i have now taken to paying what i owe, sending off evidence when i get letter from debt collectors, but generally not stressing about it all (at first i was totally mortified and lost sleep about it, not anymore).

[miarosemum]

I wrote to the same dept that deals with housing benefit and council tax benefit to notify them and this was all done on their council website, they did receive this as immediately stopped my housing benefit which I wanted to avoid overpayment! My previous landlady also advised me that she wrote to them as well to notify them of me leaving and new tenants had moved in 5 days later...no excuses really they had all the info!!

[scaryteacher]

As a CTAX officer and a CC officer before I became a teacher, I have never selectively read correspondence, as it is not worth the nausea having to put it right. Getting it right (if the info provided is correct) first time means not having to deal with the phone calls from the public.

Fluffles - was your tenant still entitled to the student exemption? You would be amazed at how many claim it and after some digging they aren't actually entitled to it.

Mia - there are usually two different departments. HB/CTB department is different to CTAX, and sharing info is not automatic. As I said you could have stopped wanting HB for a variety of reasons. Unless you wrote separately to the CTAX office, they would not know.

There have been numerous occasions when a CTAX payer has said, 'but we told you in a letter' and I have retrieved the letter and read what they have written and they have neglected to mention half of the relevant information needed.

[Collaborate]

I have spoken to ctax officers on behalf of clients who have left their marital home but are not removed from the account because "they are still a co-owner". Even if their spouse remains in the property. Either they have had no training (a sheet of A4 will hold all the rules they'll need to know about liability so I doubt that), they are very very stupid, or they are part of a vast conspiracy to make people believe they should be paying CT when in fact they aren't. It's happened far too often for me to he anything other than cynical and disillusioned about the whole administration process.
The same thing happens when clients remain in sole occupation of a property but the existence of a co-owning spouse, albeit resident elsewhere, is given as the excuse for refusing the 25% discount.

[fluffles]

Yes, she absolutely was entitled to excemption - she gave me her forwarding address, telephone number, university department, matriculation number etc. etc.

but the assumption at the council tax office seems to be that we're all out to fiddle the system... as far as i can see, some people do cheat the system so it appears that my local ctax office have decided to cheat the rest of the law-abiding citizens in return to make their money back .

[miarosemum]

scary teacher, my landlady did inform the council tax department as well when i left and to give them the new tenants details.

[gallicgirl]

Just check the CTAX liability ceases the date your tenancy ended. If you moved out before your tenancy ended and the property was unfurnished then ask for a class C exemption to the end of your liability and this should get rid of any charge and the summons should be withdrawn. It sounds like the benefits department didn't pass the info on to the CTAX office as they didn't have your address (CTAX, not benefits).

[scaryteacher]

'The same thing happens when clients remain in sole occupation of a property but the existence of a co-owning spouse, albeit resident elsewhere, is given as the excuse for refusing the 25% discount.'

Yep, and as a CTAX officer I couldn't get a 25% reduction when my dh was serving abroad as they considered our marital home to be 'his sole or main residence where he had security of tenure and a right to return to the property', even though he was serving at an International HQ abroad. Apparently the rules governing CTAX for serving at an international HQ don't apply to Brit military. Even though I bumped this all the way up the chain, I still had to pay up and look big.

I would not have removed a spouse from an account under the hierarchy of liability unless I had a letter from a solicitor with a formal date of separation on it preferably with their new address and confirmation that they were paying CTAX at the new address. Only then (and on receipt of a signed discount application) would I have altered the account and applied any discount due. That is because I was used to people trying to fiddle the system, and as I always paid in full and on time, as a law abiding citizen, I fail to see why all possible efforts to collect all the revenue due to the Council should not be made, and so my and everyone else's Council Tax bill kept as low as possible. After a decade of working in CC and CTAX one gets wise to all the tricks.

[Collaborate]

I understand that, but that will never excuse people being told untruths about whether or not someone can claim the exemption. Also you were asking for too much. If a husband returns to his parents house, he will not appear on their CT bill as he's not a resident freeholder.

It's institutionalised theft.

[scaryteacher]

True about returning to his parents, but I would want something that reflected the fact he lived there.

[Collaborate]

Why should she? It's out of her control. She can't demand he changes address for his bank statement. She can hardly ring his bank and ask for a copy of the statement. The reality is that on separation there ain't alot of cooperation going on. If she's not claiming tax credits she's no one to notify except council tax. People should be cancelling their DDs, paying 25%, and defending summonses. At least the court will have the right idea about proof.

[scaryteacher]

From what I recall, the Magistrates are presented with along list of names for which Liability orders are required and very rarely refused to grant them, unless we'd arranged at court to withdraw then from the list before the hearing. If we could prove that we had reminded, final noticed and summonsed, then we got the Liability Order.

This is why I went into teaching - dealing with 600 stroppy teenagers a week was far more restful than being a CTAX officer.

[springaroundthecorner]

Hi, I've just been searching around for some information about council tax credits and found this thread. I have been separated for 7 months and remain in the FMH along with one DC aged 16 who will be going into 6th Form in December.

Yesterday I received the yearly statement for the council tax on the house and read the booklet and have seen that I should be getting a discount as I am the only adult remaining in the house. I was stunned as had no idea this was the case.

Having read through this thread I am confused as to how I go about getting the discount. Stbx and I still have a joint account which the council tax is paid out of. Is this going to be a problem? There is zero co-operation going on between us as there is an impending assault charge going on. I do not want to have to ask him for proof he is paying council tax in his new home. (which is in a different county anyway.)

I am unemployed although I do have an income of £500 per month. I am getting some maintenance decided by stbx and not by any means enough - I am going to court for the financial order and no money has been specifically allocated to DC. Stbx has a high income.

Advice on where to start would be much appreciated and I also wonder if it can be back dated?

[QED]

When my XH left, I phoned the council tax department and the 25% discount was applied straight away. Don't know if it can be backdated though. I am also presuming you haven't applied for council tax benefit (which is separate from the 25% discount).

[springaroundthecorner]

No I havent applied for anything. Could you tell me what the council tax benefit is? It doesnt seem explain it in the booklet I have, it just mentions the discount. I am really struggling financially and it is getting worse each month to get by. I have no debts at the moment and I keep hoping I will find some work but two interviews so far and no job have started to make me look at what else in available to me.