Council Tax Liability

Earthlet_Nigel

The saga of Horsham District Council continues.

Background.

I was until the 11 May 2009 unemployed. I duly received CT benefit until this date.

My new employment means I am no longer resident in the country nor am I liable for Income Tax on my earnings. I am paid and taxed in Germany where I now live and work.

Prior to leaving for pastures new I arranged for my property to be let, and it is in fact now occupied by a single mother and one child (4), who is in this situation because her husband has !!!!!!ed off. Whereabouts unknown.

I have spoken on a short visit to this country to arrange bits and pieces with Horsham District Council, to both their CT Benefits department and their CT Collection dept. This to let them know my change of circumstances and also to request an update on CT owed for 2008/09.

The Benefits dept. seems to have grasped the situation, and is making no further payments, (to wit I am working abroad and no longer entitled) however have stated they need to speak to the current tenant.

The Collections dept has not and has issued a demand for this years Council Tax 2009/10. They have not followed my request in updating the outstanding amount for 2008/09

My understanding, and ergo my question, am I liable?

The Liability heirarchy;
The hierarchy goes :
1) resident freeholder
2) resident leaseholder
3) resident statutory/secure tenancy
4) any other contractual licence to occupy & is resident
5) any other resident
6) non resident owner.

Where my tenant is in pos 3 or 5, I myself in pos 6.

Now I don't trust HDC any further than I can throw them, having been the subject of abuse of due process. Taken to court twice in 2009 for non-payment of Council Tax whilst unemployed, and discovering that being unemployed is inadmissable evidence and no defence for non-payment of said tax. The whole affair made me considerably ill, and their response to statements by the medical profession and the War Pensions Board regarding clinical depression and severs PTSD led to their responding that this has no bearing on my ability or liability to pay CT. The Stasi would be proud of them.

Sorry to have rambled and ranted on, but I would like a competent answer.

regards

earthlet Nigel

CIS

The resident occupier is always liable if the owner does not reside in the property - unless the property comes under one of the 6 classes listed the Council Tax (Liability of owners) regs 1992 - which it doesn't appear to.

If they wont update the account to show this ( have you supplied a tenancy agreement or similar ? ) then ask for a Senior or Principal Revenues Officer (in my office the senior officer's are the day to day section managers with the principal officers being their bosses)

lincroft1710

Quote: Now I don't trust HDC any further than I can throw them, having been the subject of abuse of due process. Taken to court twice in 2009 for non-payment of Council Tax whilst unemployed, and discovering that being unemployed is inadmissable evidence and no defence for non-payment of said tax. The whole affair made me considerably ill, and their response to statements by the medical profession and the War Pensions Board regarding clinical depression and severs PTSD led to their responding that this has no bearing on my ability or liability to pay CT. The Stasi would be proud of them.

The council's stance although appearing unsympathetic is correct and in accordance with Council Tax law, which council have to abide by and were not instrumental in formulating. Anyone who has difficulty paying may be eligible for CT benefit, but that is the only concession law allows.

ca1980

I work for a local authority in revenues ( tax ) and benefits. Generally speaking the benefits service will usually respond much quicker as they have time targets on how long it takes them to adjust a claim once informed of a change.

If I was you I would provide a copy of the tenancy agreement ( assuming you have drawn one up) to the Revenues Service - this will show that you have someone else living in your property and therefore mean that have become liable since the date they moved in.
You may also wish to bear in mind that the start of the new financial year means that every dwelling in your area needs to have a bill issued - which obviously will come as no shock to the local authority - and this can take a long time to do. Furthermore it may also mean that any work generated through people changing address, needing discounts added or taken away can build up and cause a bit of a backlog and so it may take a while for the Revenues service to catch up with what the Beenfits Service has done.
You should note that if a bill has been issued you must pay it as instructed, despite waiting for the bill to be adjusted. If, in the mean time you are issued with a reminder or other action ie court action for non payment then you could produce your copies of the documents and advise that you are waiting for the authority to correct your account and ask the action be removed and taken back to billing stage - this is at the authprity's discretion.

You may already know this but your council tax bill is for the whole year so to give yourself an idea of how much you may have outstanding you can divide the bill for 08/09 by 365 ( the number of days in the year) which will give you your daily council tax charge. You can then count how many days you received benefit for and multiply that by the daily charge. You can then count how many days you were liable for after your benefit ended.

Eg: bill for the year £1000 / 365 = 2.74 per day
No of days received benefit for = 130 days : 2.74 x 130 = 356.20
Liable for another 30 days = 2.74 x 30 = 82.20
( assuming you do not qualify for single person discount or zero occupancy discount)

I hope you get sorted out soon and that made some sense!

Earthlet_Nigel

First thank you to those who have provided helpful answers, however

The saga continues

I refer to the above when I spoke to them requesting an uptodate account of CT owing for 2008/09, which was not received, in its place I received an invoice for CT 2009/10.

They had invoiced me for 2008/09 in April of this year for £107.44. Paid in April and receipted by them.

I was sent a final reminder for this amount in May, paid and receipted.

At the meeting I again paid £110, again receipted.

The reason I have paid this bill three times is down to an incorrect invoice sent for CT for 2008/09, and I was led to believe that I owed them some £600++. As far as I was concerned I was paying off what was owed. It would appear that they finally got their act together and reduced the bill to the aforestated amount, to wit £107.44, now paid three times.

Now for the icing, I have received a court summons for this amount, plus of course the statutory additional £40 and informed if I do not attend court I shall be dealt with by way of law. (Hearing dated 18.6.2009)

Note paid three times over.

Now perhaps you will understand when I say they are not to be trusted.

This will be the third court appearance (twice whilst unemployed, oh and by the way, for the first instance they denied receiving the paperwork, in the second they had processed it incorrectly), and now a third time for having paid. Now I trust you can see what a bunch of incompetent morons the good people of Horsham have to deal with.
We have a Government department that is clearly not fit for purpose, and no doubt inspections have (a la Baby P et al) failed to highlight any wrongdoing, and declared the department to be exemplary.

And this is not the first time it has happened. In the late 90's I attended court for alleged non-payment and produced all the receipts. I claimed my costs.

Given the vindictiveness of this council, not to mention the mental health problems exacerbated by them(and which they demanded to know about, and subsequently ignored[when it was disclosed that it placed them under the Military Covenant]).
No friends of the Services are HDC.
The assumption that everyone is a liar, and a marked inability to apply even a modicum of commonsense or interdepartmental check, and their papal like belief in their own infallability. I shall be seeking legal advice.

lincroft1710

So do Horsham DC now owe you £217.44? Because if so you should be complaining (as CIS posted) to Senior/Principal Revenue Officer, or even Chief Executive OffIcer himself.