Council tax panic please help!

vickimanchester

Please can someone advise me here as I'm really worried...I am registered to pay my council tax by direct debit and haven't received my new bill, so I checked my bank to see if it had been taken out this month. To my horror I realised it has not been taken out for months - I have no idea why as the dd is still active. I've received no notification of any problem and am now terrified that I am going to have to repay it all when I request a new bill. I know the previous tenant of my flat left leaving a council tax debt but I notified the council of my move in date and have written confirmation of my direct debit. What is going to happen? And what are my rights? I'd be really grateful if anyone can advise me.

Poppy9

How many months do you owe?

You should offer to repay them by adding the amount outstanding to your installments over say 12 months.

lincroft1710

When did you move into flat as it seems odd that council aren't chasing you for non payment. I am wondering if they are taking money from previous tenant.

If you don't have the money for arrears, then Poppy9's suggestion seems sensible.

*CheshireBelle*

When did they last take a payment? You only pay council tax for 10 months anyway, April - Jan. Maybe ring them to find out why they haven't taken April's payment.

lincroft1710

Cheshirebelle - you may have a point, last debit would have been Jan and perhaps April's not due yet.

angelicmary85

If it helps, mine starts on May 1st but I'm paying mine over 12 months so I'm paying May to April...but it might be different as I'm in Scotland?

kaisersoze_2

*CheshireBelle* wrote: »

When did they last take a payment? You only pay council tax for 10 months anyway, April - Jan. Maybe ring them to find out why they haven't taken April's payment.

You can choose to pay over 10 or 12 months, most bills are sent with the payments spread over 10 months but you can ask for it to be over 12.

CIS

You can choose to pay over 10 or 12 months, most bills are sent with the payments spread over 10 months but you can ask for it to be over 12.

Legally you can ask but they don't have to do so. The statutory instalment scheme is for a maximum of 10 and a minimum of 1 instalment.

angelicmary85

On my bill there's something like 9 or 12 different ways to pay (3 different payments dates to choose from and 3 or 4 different payment options!) so we can just put in x in the box that we want to choose, that's just Highland Council though...and the options weren't on this years bill as they just take your 1st request and roll it over year after year.

CIS

Most councils will give extra ways to pay as it makes recovery work a heck of a lot easier , its often better to allow more options of payment than to issue a Liability Order. The only problem is they don't have to vary from the statutory scheme and thats where some councils can get awkward.

vickimanchester

Thanks for replies everybody - there has definitely been a problem as they haven't taken payment since september. I moved in in June and sorted out the dd then. I thought dd was safe so didn't think to check. I am going to phone up and see what they say, will ask if I can repay in instalments. I'm quite annoyed this has happened though as I thought the whole point of dd was that you didn't need to worry about getting behind with payments. Once again, thanks for your help.