Just received first council tax bill for whole period 2004-2008

meester

Have just received a bill for address I moved out of last year. Basically when we moved (4 years ago) in the landlord informed us that he'd informed council about new build but they had made no council tax demand.

Received nothing, and property not showing on VOA list.

However have received (3 weeks ago - been on holiday) a council tax bill for 2004-2009 addressed to us correctly at our current address (not sure where data comes from, we didn't give l/l forwarding details), relating to the old address. The total is £7k. I'm not totally sure the correct amount because we were not resident at the beginning of the period, and are no longer resident there now.

Anyway, I'd hoped that this day would never come, but wonder about best course of action. The bill is obviously wrong, albeit that we were there. They have asked for 7 instalments of about £1k each. The first is just due, I can only imagine that in 2-3 weeks they will send a reminder for that payment.

I'm minded to wait to receive further correspondence from them before taking any further action, but what should I do then? Can I ask them to justify the dates we moved in (I know when we moved out). And should I ask for a longer payment schedule?

sooz

I would not wait. They have found you & they want their money. Did you hope that this would just go away? :rotfl:

Find your old tenancy agreement, & send a copy of it to the council. Then wait for them to work out exactly how much you owe, & then negotiate the installments.

Finally, be thankful that they aren't taking you to court.

dmg24

meester wrote: »

Have just received a bill for address I moved out of last year. Basically when we moved (4 years ago) in the landlord informed us that he'd informed council about new build but they had made no council tax demand.

Received nothing, and property not showing on VOA list.

However have received (3 weeks ago - been on holiday) a council tax bill for 2004-2009 addressed to us correctly at our current address (not sure where data comes from, we didn't give l/l forwarding details), relating to the old address. The total is £7k. I'm not totally sure the correct amount because we were not resident at the beginning of the period, and are no longer resident there now.

Anyway, I'd hoped that this day would never come, but wonder about best course of action. The bill is obviously wrong, albeit that we were there. They have asked for 7 instalments of about £1k each. The first is just due, I can only imagine that in 2-3 weeks they will send a reminder for that payment.

I'm minded to wait to receive further correspondence from them before taking any further action, but what should I do then? Can I ask them to justify the dates we moved in (I know when we moved out). And should I ask for a longer payment schedule?

Why should you ask them to justify anything? You know when you lived there, you need to pay what you owe.

Very, very irresponsible.

meester

dmg24 wrote: »

Why should you ask them to justify anything? You know when you lived there, you need to pay what you owe.

Very, very irresponsible.

I don't know the date I moved in.

dmg24

meester wrote: »

I don't know the date I moved in.

You must know an approximate date - or are you choosing to have a selective memory?

meester

dmg24 wrote: »

You must know an approximate date - or are you choosing to have a selective memory?

plus or minus a few months yes, but that doesn't seem entirely accurate enough.

sooz

meester wrote: »

I don't know the date I moved in.

Then get in touch with your ex-landlord. They will certainly have the dates, & will have given your details on to the council, as they probably would have had the bill sent to them first.

meester

sooz wrote: »

Finally, be thankful that they aren't taking you to court.

Considering that they'd not raised a bill before they have no basis to do that, and besides their dates are all wrong, so they're not in any position to sue me at the moment, besides which a court summons is in itself not a problem, it's non-payment of any resultant judgement (which is quite a long way down the line) that's problematic. So no, not thankful really.

I do wonder at the logic that possesses them to send a bill for the current year when they have an address for me that is entirely different. At a previous address I received a council tax enquiry form to ask about move-in dates and so on, so I am not sure why they have simply decided to send out an unadorned bill for thousands of pounds without any correspondence, on the basis of what I assume to be credit record data.

meester

sooz wrote: »

Then get in touch with your ex-landlord. They will certainly have the dates, & will have given your details on to the council, as they probably would have had the bill sent to them first.

I didn't give him my forwarding address, and he would have provided the current tenants' details for at least the period since they moved in.

sooz

meester wrote: »

.

I'm minded to wait to receive further correspondence from them before taking any further action, but what should I do then?

If you do this, the next letter from them will be a court summons.

You are the one who lived in a property for 4 years without making any attempt to pay your council tax.

I think that they are being rather reasonable allowing you to pay in installments at all.

firesidemaid

i may be wrong here (so don't all jump on me at once:rolleyes: ) but can they really bill you for all that time or will some of it have become non-billable? (this is the case with water rates as i found out - i was paying, just not enough).