Council Tax badness :(

Morgan_Ree

Squonkey wrote: »

Thing is though, technically this is a care of address for me as I am estranged from my parents so I could actually be classed as homeless with no fixed abode. Also, in the eyes of the law I am not seen to be his partner as we are not married and have no dependants which probably creates a problem for claiming HB.

It doesn't matter whether you are married or not
You are living together as a couple

The debt won't go away unless you manage to back date your HB claim to when you moved in and began claiming JSA, but to do this you have a provide a valid reason as to why you didn't claim sooner

Squonkey

We have failed to mention that the council tax bills were addressed to the full-time student...with no correspondence to me up until i received the court summons. This is my first and only correspondence with the council tax department. This happend when he informed them that he is indeed returning to university

It started because the council tax dept. were informed that he is apparently no longer a full time student because we were forced on to a joint jobseekers claim. Granted he has been made exempt from signing on for JSA but we are receiving a couple's rate.

So it appears that he has been counted as in receipt of benefits which should not even have happened in the first place, as the rules for JSA clearly state that full time students are not eligible to receive benefit payments.


My head hurts....

Squonkey

Would the fact that our letting agent have been unwilling to give us the necessary support to make the housing benefit claim stand as a valid reason?

Tixy

The bills would be addressed to the tenant as he would be the one liable for paying the bill - even though the charge has arisen because you are living there.

Not sure about using the fact that the letting agent didn't help -sorry

Morgan_Ree

Squonkey wrote: »

We have failed to mention that the council tax bills were addressed to the full-time student...with no correspondence to me up until i received the court summons. This is my first and only correspondence with the council tax department.

Could this be because he didn't notify the council that he was no longer the sole occupant therefore no longer entitled to the full exemption?

ETA sorry I just re-read your post about the council being informed he was no longer a student

First things first you need to sort out the joint JSA claim
It shouldn't be joint seeing as he's a full time student and therefore insn't eligable to claim

Squonkey

no, we moved in together and they knew it in the first place.

Morgan_Ree

If you get your JSA claim sorted you may have to repay some money seeing as you were receiving the couples allowance

Apply for HB asap, there is a part on the back of the form about adding any further details, there you could explain the problems with the letting agent
Tbh im not sure if they would class that as a valid reason but it's worth a try

Then you can tackle the council tax when you know where you stand with regards to the amount outstanding (if you do manage to get you claim backdated they would obviously have to recalculate it)

Tixy

A good action plan Morgan.

We are talking about a CCJ here aren't we Squonkey? If so then don't just ignore the debt otherwise you might well have baliffs at the door.

Squonkey

We have been informed by the council tax dept that we are eligible for the reduced council tax rate however they do expect us to pay the full outstanding amount. We have been told by 2 advisors in the dept that we do not have to attend the court hearing. *Phew*

Tomorrow we shall take all the necessary documents to our CAB office and see an advisor there.

Thanks everyone for the help, you've all cleared a few things up for us, we'll let the officials take care of as much of this mess as they can for us

Have a good week y'all

RAS

Squonky

The Liability Order has to be paid off or they will send it to the bailiffs.

As long as you keep them out of the studio, they cannot take anything but if either of you has a car or you let them in bailiff fees can mount up.