Manchester City Council sending baliffs for non existant debt.

manchesteradam

Hello all,

Apologise in advance for what may be a long post but this is not something I have any experience of and from reading the forum I don’t think anyone else has experienced anything similar.

I recently was sent two letters. Firstly from Manchester City Council and secondly from a bailiff on behalf of Manchester City Council. I thought this was strange as since living in Manchester I’ve always either been exempt from paying Council Tax as a student or paid my council tax in full and on time. When I read the letter it stated myself and one of my housemates from university were owing a years worth of council tax for a 12 month period after we had left the property (we lived there with two other housemates from 2000-2001 – they are trying to claim unpaid tax from 2002-2003).

I promptly sent the council a letter confirming we had not lived in the property at that time along with details of the properties we moved to and the landlords details so that he could confirm this.

After Christmas I presumed this would have all been sorted but today I received another letter from the bailiff attempting collection of a debt I do not owe. Obviously we don’t want to refuse payment and face the prospect of jail but we definitely do not want to pay a debt that we do not owe.

I don’t even know who at the council I can complain to about this treatment. Does anyone have any advice at all? It feels very unfair that all the onus is on myself and my former flatmate to prove we did not live there, yet they can sell debt that never existed onto bailiffs with no proof whatsoever.

Many thanks in advance for all your help.

ariarnia

Phone the bailiffs and say you are disputing the debt with the council and they'll back off until it's sorted.

Phone the council and ask if they got your letter. Also ask if they have record of your (either tax paid or exemption) for the address you were resident in for the year 2002-2003.

In the event that they do, state (politely) that the address they have record of payment for was your sole address for that year and could they please update their records regarding the accommodation they are trying to charge you for.

In the event they don't, you might want to check that you actually paid it, and then phone them back with the date of the charge from your back and the reference on your statement.

more_money_for_me

Really easy way to get it sorted out quickly is to get a story in the Manchester Evening News about the stress and worry it has caused you. Papers love incompetent council stories. They will ask the council for their version of events, and since they seem not to have a leg to stand on they will apologise and call the balliffs off. Make sure you get in touch with the opposition councillor as well, they like nothing more than calling their political opponents incompetent.

RobertoMoir

ariarnia wrote: »

Phone the bailiffs and say you are disputing the debt with the council and they'll back off until it's sorted. .

News to me. We certainly never took a blind bit of notice of people making that claim when I worked as a bailiff.

RobertoMoir

manchesteradam wrote: »

I don’t even know who at the council I can complain to about this treatment. Does anyone have any advice at all? It feels very unfair that all the onus is on myself and my former flatmate to prove we did not live there, yet they can sell debt that never existed onto bailiffs with no proof whatsoever.

Many thanks in advance for all your help.

You need to understand something: The council have not "sold the debt" - you have been taken to magistrates court and a Liability Order has been granted for non payment of council tax. I'm not saying this to be pedantic, you need to appreciate the position you are in. You are not being chased by debt collectors who have purchased a debt, bailiffs are executing a Liability Order against you. Two very different things, trust me. While it's not terribly likely, you can end up in prison for non-payment of council tax.

Now I've got your attention... on to what to do about it: I would contact the council's "Council Tax Recovery Department" and go from there. You need to do two things:
1. Ask them to halt bailiff action while you discuss the matter with them.
2. Prove to them that you do not owe this debt. You'll need to show either that you didn't live at the address concerned in the time concerned or that you were not liable for council tax due to an exemption (e.g. student, as you say).

Don't bother discussing the matter with the bailiffs - they won't care about your claim that you don't owe anything to the council - they hear that all the time and mostly from people who do owe the debt, and they'll probably only take instructions to halt from the council.

If this does not work (and assuming you still live in Manchester) then contact your local councillor. They are your representative and your route to quickly deal with urgent matters like this and will be able to get results if the council tax department are unhelpful.

Note that I said "local councillor", not MP, not "mate who works at the council dog fouling department and sometimes eats lunch with the council tax people", not "bloke from the local newspaper". The councillor will get results.

ariarnia

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Don't bother discussing the matter with the bailiffs - they won't care about your claim that you don't owe anything to the council - they hear that all the time and mostly from people who do owe the debt, and they'll probably only take instructions to halt from the council.

Worked when they lost the paperwork for one of my housemates who was a full time post-grad. Landlord hadn't forwarded the council tax letters (went to the shop below apparently) so no one noticed till we got letters from the debt-collectors.

Phoned them and they said they'd give us a week to get it sorted, phoned the council who needed his exemption cirt from uni and proof of his previous address faxed through and then all sorted.

To be honest, I figure they were pleased to have some contact and him actually talking to them as, as far as they were concerned, no one had any communication from my flat mate at all to this point.

pmduk

With Salford, similar problems needed complaints at Chief Executive level and sight of the draft of my complaint to the Ombudsman before they took any notice. They didn't even reply to my councillor for 3 months.

RobertoMoir

ariarnia wrote: »

Worked when they lost the paperwork for one of my housemates who was a full time post-grad. Landlord hadn't forwarded the council tax letters (went to the shop below apparently) so no one noticed till we got letters from the debt-collectors.

Phoned them and they said they'd give us a week to get it sorted, phoned the council who needed his exemption cirt from uni and proof of his previous address faxed through and then all sorted.

To be honest, I figure they were pleased to have some contact and him actually talking to them as, as far as they were concerned, no one had any communication from my flat mate at all to this point.

Well that's cool, but believe me they were an exception to the rule! Otherwise people would be able to get rid of the bailiffs very easily after all...

manchesteradam

RobertoMoir wrote: »

You need to understand something: The council have not "sold the debt" - you have been taken to magistrates court and a Liability Order has been granted for non payment of council tax. I'm not saying this to be pedantic, you need to appreciate the position you are in. You are not being chased by debt collectors who have purchased a debt, bailiffs are executing a Liability Order against you. Two very different things, trust me. While it's not terribly likely, you can end up in prison for non-payment of council tax.

Thanks for clarifying this - I know that you can end up in prison for this hence my considerable worry over the matter.

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Now I've got your attention... on to what to do about it: I would contact the council's "Council Tax Recovery Department" and go from there. You need to do two things:
1. Ask them to halt bailiff action while you discuss the matter with them.
2. Prove to them that you do not owe this debt. You'll need to show either that you didn't live at the address concerned in the time concerned or that you were not liable for council tax due to an exemption (e.g. student, as you say).

Okay, this is where things get a little more complicated. I've managed to get the council to put a 28 day stop on the collector (and also written to the bailiff to inform them of this). However, I thought that the "proof" would be for council tax paid on the property I lived in (also in Manchester) for the period they are trying to claim unpaid tax for. The Council have told me they have no record of Council Tax from so long ago - which is problematic. My old landlord has said that he sent a letter 2 weeks ago informing the Council we did not live there during that period and the Council are saying that they have not recieved this.

It feels very unfair all the onus is on us to prove we do not own this debt when the Council have no evidence at all to the contrary.

Thanks for the advice about local councillor I will take this up. I've also lodged complaints on the online system for Manchester City Council (found on DirectGov) and written a letter to the Chief Executive I will be writing letters to the opposition MP and the Manchester Evening News about this later tonight.

Thanks for all your help so far.

ariarnia

Ask them if they'd rather the letter be faxed directly then call to confirm receipt immediately afterwards, or ask your landlord for another letter and offer to pay for it to be sent recorded delivery.

pmduk

local authorities can be a nightmare. Years ago my housing benefit was stopped because I hadn't returned a form. The person investigating my complaint opened my file and found the form immediately.