Help sis been summoned to court

ZINXYX

Hi,
Could someone please help me out here?
My sis moved into a flat with her friend last November.Her friend refused to pay any council tax and travelled abroad for good last week. She's been left with a massive bill of £440 plus £57 costs and summoned to appear on 1st April. She simply cannot afford to pay all of it in a go.
Could some one please offer some suggestions as to sort this out?
Thanks

torikate

She may be able to pay this in installments, not sure what the situation on her being abroad will be though. When we got a court summons for council tax there was a q&a on the back of the letter. If we didn't object that we owed the money we didn't have to attend court. If she does (ie her friend owes it) then she should try to attend to explain this.We got a liability order which means they looked at our finances to see why we hadn't paid (were struggling to afford it) we set out a payment plan and have to stick to it or risk going back to court. As this is a joint they will both be liable. Maybe your sister could call the council/CAB for advise.
Hope this helps.

adambro

Sounds like a good friend.

CIS

I work in council tax recovery.

Your sis is jointly liable for the debt and the council can pursue either of them for the entire balance.

She does not have a legal defence that the magistrate can consider in granting the Liability Order - she is liable so he has no choice but to grant it.

It is however possible for the Council to consider a payment arrangement but that is at their discretion.

Georgie4

Get your sister to contact the council to try and arrange for instalments before it comes to court and the council is granted a liability order. This is a priority debt which has serious consequences once it enters the court system - it is the only non payment debt that you can be ultimately imprisoned for

ZINXYX

Thanks to everyone for the info and help.I've got her to contact the council and she has made an initial payment of £100.00. Council has withdrawn the summons while we are in the process of negotiating some form of acceptable instalment payments.

Scaredy_Cat_3

The advice above is correct - I used to work in the Rates Recovery Department of the local authority (waaaaaay back when we paid Rates instead of Council Tax). So obviously anything I might suggest is tainted by just how excruciatingly out of touch I am... but in my day, just as CIS said, your sister and her friend would be 'joint and severally liable', meaning the council can chase either one of them to recover the debt,and they don't have to split it 50/50.

I assume the council tax bill was in joint names?

The only other thing I would add... the best thing to do is what she's done, in making an arrangement with the council, but if the worst comes to the worst and it does go to court she can write a letter to the court. When I used to attend court for these hearings, people would write letters in explaining how they were struggling etc., and the court would make very lenient arrangements for them to repay the debt at really, really low rates... far less than the council would ever have agreed to in an arrangement.

Of course, she can't count on that, and in any case it would have a detrimental effect on her credit rating. It's better all round to make an arrangement with the council, I'm just saying this in case everything goes really wrong.

I agree also, some friend!!! Is there any way your sis can get in touch and ask the 'friend' to contribute?

CIS

When I used to attend court for these hearings, people would write letters in explaining how they were struggling etc., and the court would make very lenient arrangements for them to repay the debt at really, really low rates... far less than the council would ever have agreed to in an arrangement.

These days the magistrates have no power to dictate payment arrangements at the Liability Order hearing, the magistrate only gains these powers at a committal hearing.

Of course, she can't count on that, and in any case it would have a detrimental effect on her credit rating

Unless your made bankrupt nothing to do with Council Tax affects your credit rating.