Council Tax from 2001

HateBanks

I received a letter today from council tax saying we owe £1061 from another property we lived in in 2001, I had the same letter in Jan 2009, which I replied to, and asked for a detailed breakdown of all payment made to them around that time, they were taking payments directly from my husbands wages in 1999 to 2002 and when these debits stopped in 2002, I called and was told our debt had been cleared and in fact we were in credit by £60, we have continued to pay and kept up to date since then.
I have heard nothing from them regarding this in 16 months. When we got the same notification last year, I phoned and was told they had been trying to track us down from an old address, well, they hadnt been trying very hard as we live in a council house, and have been since 1999! Can they hold this over us as we have not heard of this debt for 8 years? I dont think we even owe it, but do not have records for that long ago.
Thanks

cyberbob

HateBanks wrote: »

I received a letter today from council tax saying we owe £1061 from another property we lived in in 2001,

HateBanks wrote: »

they hadnt been trying very hard as we live in a council house, and have been since 1999!
Thanks

So i'm confused is the debt from the house your in or another one? Or where you living in 2 properties in 2001?

KeithP

cyberbob wrote: »

So i'm confused is the debt from the house your in or another one? Or where you living in 2 properties in 2001?

I think maybe they have lived in more than one council house since 1999. They probably moved from one council house to another sometime after 2001.

:beer:

AsknAnswer2

Yes, if you owe it then they can hold it over you. Council tax is not statute barred.

CIS

Providing that a Liability Order was obtained within 6 years of the original Demand Notice being issued then the council can proceed with recovery action against you, if they did not obtain the Liability Order then they have no legal powers althought they can still send letters etc to you asking for payment.

If a Liability Order has been obtained then it remains in force as long the arrears are outstanding, there is no time limit.

I work in council tax recovery and what I find usually happens is that people have had several seperate lots of arrears, make an arrangement and pay it off. Then they assume incorrectly that all of the balance is cleared and not just the part they had an arrangement for.

The only way for you to proceed is to contact the council and obtain further information.

HateBanks

Thanks for replies..We did move from one council house to another, we lived in 1 from 1999 to 2001, then another from 2001 to date. I have not got a problem with paying the bill if we owe it, but as they have not asked for it for 8 years, I do not now have the records to prove that we had paid it directly from my husbands pay, the firm he worked for has now gone bust, so we have no chance of recovering records from them, and when I asked local council for the schedule of payments that we made over that time, i was ignored for 16 months! Will have to write to them again, just interested to know about limitations on recovery with a debt this old.
thank you.
:A