Help! Been summoned for unpaid council tax

LaurieK

Hello, this is my first post - sorry about the length of it, it's a bit complicated and I've tried to give as much info as possible.

Me and my hubby received a summons from the council today for unpaid council tax. We have a bit of a complicated situation as we were living in a mobile home and building a house (on the same site with the same address). So we were paying council tax on our mobile home, by Direct Debit, then we moved into our house and they changed our address slightly on our next council tax bill so that it no longer said 'caravan @ ......' and just stated the name of the place - this being our house now. And continued to take payment by DD but it was now for the house.

The caravan was given a new account reference and we were sent a letter stating that for Apr08 to Sept08 there was no council tax due as our caravan was now exempt. We then had a bill in January showing that 50% tax was due for the period Oct08-Mar09. So in theory we have now been charged a quarter of the council tax due for the year on a caravan that was removed. We also had a letter in January from the council stating that they were aware that the caravan had been removed and could we send details of the exact date (which I can't remember now, thought someone had been out to check as I had to complete a form for someone and they went round the back to see that it had gone - forgot to take a copy of the form - this could have been the valuation office but can't see what the caravan being there or not had to do with them).

Anyway, so now we are being summoned for a quarter of the year for 2008/2009 plus the whole of 2009/2010 for a caravan that wasn't there and they knew it wasn't there (albeit not the exact date it went) on a reference number that is totally new as they set up another account for it. The original Direct Debit that I set up was to pay the caravan and they changed the property reference address on that account so that it then paid the house and left the caravan unpaid - is this legal? Without my permission or a letter informing me of this, when I got our house council tax bill for the 08/09 year the payments that I had supposedly made to pay the caravan tax now showed it had paid the house tax as the address had changed.

Sorry it's so complicated and my explanation probably isn't good but any advice would be really helpful!

(I plan on calling the Valuation Office on Monday to see if I told them the date the caravan was moved off site)

clutton_2

you need to put it all in writing (albeit a little more clearly than here) - and then present it as your defence ito the court - you will have the chance to explain things once you go to the hearing - butyou will need to prove your case

councils get into muddles with accounts all the time

bargain-hunter-uk_2

i'd be more inclined to go to the town hall offices and book an appointment with a handler, and go through it slowly and properly. I've had issues before with all sorts of variations, and it's only when you sit down with someone and they break it all down that they can recalclate.

Often, and hint of late or missed payments will trigger the summons, nothing to worry about, it just needs nipping in the bud through communication.;)

Fire_Fox

Do you mean you are being charged for council tax on both the (?static) caravan and the house at the same time, but 100% on the house and 50% on the caravan? As the caravan was registered as a habitable property it may be irrelevant that you were no longer living there - any empty, furnished property is liable for 50% council tax.

Cissi

Firefox, I think the OP is saying that the caravan had been removed?

To the OP: I too would make an appointment and go down to explain things in person, armed with all the relevant documents and exact dates for when things happened. You should be able to nip this one in the bud - probably just an error generated by automatic systems because someone somewhere didn't enter the correct information in the system.

LaurieK

We were being charged for both the caravan and the house at the same time as we had moved into the house and the caravan was still there for a short while before we removed it (need to find out the date I told the valuation office and if it was them that I told I'm a muppet for not taking a copy of the form that I completed and am now really angry with myself as I'm usually so careful!).

We were charged 50% council tax on the mobile home, but only for the second half of the year, the first half of the year they said it was exempt.

The council are chasing us for the 50% of the second half of 2008/2009 (being October to March) which by that time the mobile home had definitely been removed. Also they are asking us to pay for 2009/2010 (being April 2009 to March 2010) for the mobile home, I guess because their system shows we haven't paid for April/May/June they are now asking for the whole year to be paid. Grrrrr Automated systems!!!

The house council tax is paid up to date.

I hope this clarifies, but yes I agree I do need to get my dates etc. sorted out first before I call/email/write to them.

Thanks for your help

CIS

Do you mean you are being charged for council tax on both the (?static) caravan and the house at the same time, but 100% on the house and 50% on the caravan? As the caravan was registered as a habitable property it may be irrelevant that you were no longer living there - any empty, furnished property is liable for 50% council tax.

Council tax is not charged on the caravan - its charged on the pitch. If the pitch is empty then it is entitled to a indefinite Class R exemption.

Have you checked what the valuation list shows (https://www.voa.gov.uk) , the house should be in under 1 reference and the caravan pitch under another. The caravan pitch should be removed if no longer needed to prevent any problems, if there's no entry on the valuation list then it cant be charged for (it could be provisonally banded but that's not legally enforceable if you dont pay)

The council can and will chase for any council tax due until the issues are resolved over the status of the caravan and pitch.

LaurieK

CIS wrote: »

Council tax is not charged on the caravan - its charged on the pitch. If the pitch is empty then it is entitled to a indefinite Class R exemption.

Have you checked what the valuation list shows, the house should be in under 1 reference and the caravan pitch under another. The caravan pitch should be removed if no longer needed to prevent any problems, if there's no entry on the valuation list then it cant be charged for (it could be provisonally banded but that's not legally enforceable if you dont pay)

The council can and will chase for any council tax due until the issues are resolved over the status of the caravan and pitch.

Sorry I should have called it a mobile home instead of caravan. We had a Certificate of Lawful Use for it and it was a residential property before our house was built. So council tax was due on it and we paid it right up to moving into our house when we then started paying our house council tax.

CIS

Caravan/Mobile home makes no difference - its the pitch thats chargeable. For the council to legally charge you for the 'caravan' there must be a pitch registered with the valuation office.

You need to determine 1) if there is actually a pitch registered with the VO (check at https://www.voa.gov.uk )and 2) why they haven't give you the Class R if they have pitch which is un-occupied.

westv

I assume the OP received a request for payment from the council rather than anything legal like a court summons.

LaurieK

Thank you so much CIS!

Ok so I have checked the Valuation Office website and there are two references, one for the caravan and one for the house so I guess the council can legally charge us the council tax.

After a lot more hunting around on their website I think I've found something that will help me.

Our caravan, as I've already said, had a Certificate of Lawful Use given by the council, we then had a lot of hassle but finally got planning permission for a house. One of our planning conditions was that the caravan be removed within one month of us moving into our house.

So I guess that turned the caravan into "a caravan in the grounds of a building project - temporary sole residence." Although the VOA weren't informed of the planning condition which could be a problem. The VOA states that "It should be understood that a pitch with any caravan that might be included, ceases to be a dwelling in law, the moment it is no longer used as a sole or main residence." So this means that as soon as we started paying council tax on our house our caravan was no longer our main residence?

Yes westv we did receive requests for payment, I had called them a few months ago when we got the first and told them again that the caravan had gone, they looked on our records and agreed and just said they needed the date it was removed in writing. As I didn't tell them they did send other requests but I just thought it was automated computer systems and that nothing would come of it as surely someone would check their computer records before it went any further. I was wrong.