court summons - council tax

lloydstsb

hi guys

unsure where to post this but anyways

my parents today received a court summons each to their house. it says its because of failure to pay council tax. they have never missed a payment and have kept all their receipts. this particular payment was made at the post office as usual and they have the receipt for it with a stamp on it. the money also debited their bank account. the court summons says they have to pay the whole amount remaining for the year plus £55 costs.

they went to the local council today with their court summons and somebody there has written a letter to someone higher up apparently with copies of the receipt and bank statement. they said wait a couple of days and then call back to find out whats happening.

what i want to know is what happens now? do they need to go to their bank or the post office or the court or the council! they are as confused as me.

by the way the payment was made by cheque, if that helps...

any advice appreciated, thanks

alison999

wait a few days then call the council as was advised.

if they paid by cheque they'll be a paper trail anyway. just be glad they didn't pay cash and bin their receipt!

sarahg1969

Wait and see what the council say in a couple of days? Sounds like it someone's made an admin error.

wallbash

They can prove they paid their Council Tax
Council have 'screwed up '. Its the council's fault.
Tell them to sort it out

Tell parents too stop worrying.


Ps Council will blame a computer foul up!

CIS

Under the legislation regardless of whether you have made all the payments or not you can still be summonsed.

If a payment is late by more than 7 days a reminder is issued for the missing payment to be made within 7 days or the full years balance within a further 7 days.

If you haven't made the missing payment within those 7 days then regardless of if you do make it later the council can issue a summons as the full years balance has become due.

Cheque payments via the postoffice can take a while to clear, we often have similar issues with customers who pay through paypoint which can take 7-10 days to clear.

Claire_Bear

Hi, I have an issue with council tax at the minute as well. There is currently 4 of us living in a student house. Myself and two others are students, but the other person isn't, and is currently in full time employment. We've been in the house for a year, but earlier this month all four of us received court summons saying that we haven't paid our council tax, and we owe the sum of roughly £1500. Obviously as students, 3 of us are exempt from council tax, does this mean that the fourth member of the household will have to pay the entire amount? We thought that because the house is technically a student house, there would be no tax to pay at all. This is the first we've heard from the council about it, we've had no monthly bills and no other mention of it until we received our summons, so we're all slightly baffled as to where this has come from. The non-student rang them up today, and they said they're going to investigate the matter.

brightonman123

if they foul up and dont sort by time of hearing, i am sure their summons will be laughed out of court.

be sure to notify the press, so they (council) can be seen answering some awkward questions..

then consider demanding a public apology, or maybe even compo to the level of say a years free c/tax for tjhe stress and inconvenience..

i once had a few cash payments put onto a totally unrelated tenants a/c, took a while for them to sort out / admit mistake.

mrcol1000

Claire_Bear wrote: »

Hi, I have an issue with council tax at the minute as well. There is currently 4 of us living in a student house. Myself and two others are students, but the other person isn't, and is currently in full time employment. We've been in the house for a year, but earlier this month all four of us received court summons saying that we haven't paid our council tax, and we owe the sum of roughly £1500. Obviously as students, 3 of us are exempt from council tax, does this mean that the fourth member of the household will have to pay the entire amount? We thought that because the house is technically a student house, there would be no tax to pay at all. This is the first we've heard from the council about it, we've had no monthly bills and no other mention of it until we received our summons, so we're all slightly baffled as to where this has come from. The non-student rang them up today, and they said they're going to investigate the matter.

Yes the non-student will have to pay full council tax although should get a 25% single person discount as they are the lone council tax payer in the property. You can't just deem a property a student house and be exempt from Council Tax otherwise my house would have become a student house a long time ago! If I was the non-student I would move into a non-student house share so that the Council Tax is equally shared out.

lloydstsb

Cis

so are you saying they are probably being summonsed because they keep paying by cheque so possibly the council keep getting money late? That would be fair enough but why don't they write to them if a payment is late?

Thanks

puffinmuffin

Unfortunately this is a standard response from councils for missed payment, they should have had a reminder though. i got one when 1/3 of the payment was missed (shared house) When i rang up they were fine about it and let us carry on paying monthly, they did make us pay the admin fee.

PinkLipgloss

Claire_Bear wrote: »

Hi, I have an issue with council tax at the minute as well. There is currently 4 of us living in a student house. Myself and two others are students, but the other person isn't, and is currently in full time employment. We've been in the house for a year, but earlier this month all four of us received court summons saying that we haven't paid our council tax, and we owe the sum of roughly £1500. Obviously as students, 3 of us are exempt from council tax, does this mean that the fourth member of the household will have to pay the entire amount? We thought that because the house is technically a student house, there would be no tax to pay at all. This is the first we've heard from the council about it, we've had no monthly bills and no other mention of it until we received our summons, so we're all slightly baffled as to where this has come from. The non-student rang them up today, and they said they're going to investigate the matter.

Claire Bear,

I had a similar situation. MrCol is right - the non-student will have to pay but will qualify for a 25% discount. However, they will not receive the discount until you return a special exemption form which has to be stamped and verified by your university.

I was on a placement during my post-grad and was thus not able to return the form immediately. As such, the non-student had to pay the full amount until they council tax office received and processed my exemption form. The non-student didn't get their 25% back in cash - it was taken off the next bill.

In order to qualify for the exemption you have to be full time students - part of the form requires the university to verify how many hours per week your course runs (If I remember rightly it has to be 16 hours or more per week.)

Lipgloss