4 Year Old Council Tax Bill - Please Help

murmur

Hi,

I recieved a letter from East Cambridgeshire District Council today which I really do not understand.

It says:

On 26 July 2005 a liability order was granted for £956.58 and then says that the current amuont due is £286.10.

It's for a property that I have not lived in for nearly 4 years - I moved out on June 27th 2005 and informed the council that I was moving out and gave them a forwarding address. A new tennant took over the property at the start of July 2005.

I'm in a complete pickle and do not know what to do - I don't believe I owe this money and I cannot understand why they have not attempted to contact me about this before. I do not have any documentation dating that far back now - stupidly I thought there wasn't any problems so had a wonderful afternoon of shredding anything over 2 years old about a year ago!

I have had debt problems on and off all through my adult life but I have never knowingly defaulted on council tax payments and have worked very hard over the last few years to try to clear my other debts. I feel like I can see my debt problems coming to an end within the next year but then when something like this happens I just feel totally deflated.

If anybody has had a similar experience or could possibly give me some advice on what to do I would really appreciate it.

CIS

You need to contact then regarding the periods you lived in the house and query the liability - it may easily be an error or misunderstanding. (we see quite a few in my dept.)

If the liability was issued in July 05 then recovery action would have taken at least a month or so prior to that . At first glance I would say that they took action for the year against you (hence the full balance of £956.56) which was then reduced to £286.10 when they closed the account (April to June). The £286.10 would be the pretty much the charge for that period allowing for court costs.

Did you pay for the period of April to June ?, it looks like for this period they have received no payments from you.

murmur

Thank you for replying - that information is very useful and will help me when I call tommorow.

I'm pretty certain that I did pay April - June. I've just had a check on my online banking statement for that period and it says direct debits were paid but doesn't say what they were for, so I think I shall have to contact my bank and ask them for more details.