Letters from Bailiffs but not a dickiebird from the council!!.

slowdive

'Landlord Alert'
I have received three bailiff's letters from Chandlers regarding unpaid council tax at my tenants address but absolutely zero correspondence from the council itself.

One is a 'Final Notice', the second a '72 Hour notice' and the third a 'Removal Notification'.

The letters are addressed to me personally and I think must cover the period from June - October last year. I think I remember paying this over the counter but have not retained any proof of this.

According to the bailiffs letters, a court order was dated on the 6th Nov 2009 but I have received no word of it until I picked the three letters up on the 7th May.

Is this standard procedure for councils to behave like this or should I have been informed of this court order at the time?.

I've arranged an interview with the council tomorrow afternoon to find out what's going on.

Any advice would be welcome. Thanks

RobertoMoir

Perfectly standard procedure for them to get LOs without much notice. There should have been some notice sent however.

Is there no way you can prove you have paid this? Cheque stubs, etc?

WhiteHorse

Check with the court to see if the order is genuine. It seems odd that you were never notified of proceedings against you.

No letters from the council suggests that they have been over hasty in going to law. That is unreasonable, and is not something that the court appreciates.

It also begs the question ... who was responsible for the council tax at that address? There is a tenant, and yet you paid the bill and are named on the correspondence. Who does the council think is living there and when?

As for trusting your council and not keeping the receipt ... :eek:

slowdive

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Perfectly standard procedure for them to get LOs without much notice. There should have been some notice sent however.

Is there no way you can prove you have paid this? Cheque stubs, etc?

...I'm hoping that the council will have some proof of my payment tommorrow.

...By the way, what's an LO. I feel it must be something obvious but it hasn't clicked yet!.

RobertoMoir

WhiteHorse wrote: »

Check with the court to see if the order is genuine. It seems odd that you were never notified of proceedings against you.

No letters from the council suggests that they have been over hasty in going to law. That is unreasonable, and is not something that the court appreciates.

Not to be rude or anything but you seem to think the process for getting a Liability Order granted for non payment of council tax is similar to getting a CCJ against someone then a warrant for bailiff action. It isn't anything like the same at all, and the process as described is perfectly normal and the only way a LO will be struck down at this time is if it can be shown that it was issued in error - meaning the debt was paid, or shouldn't have been raised in the first place.

LOs are essentially rubber stamped by the metric tonne in a magistrates court.

RobertoMoir

slowdive wrote: »

...I'm hoping that the council will have some proof of my payment tommorrow.

...By the way, what's an LO. I feel it must be something obvious but it hasn't clicked yet!.

Sorry, I forget not everyone speaks the lingo.

LO = Liability Order = the magistrates court order the council will have been granted against you in order to be able to instruct bailiffs to recover the council tax debt.

WhiteHorse

RobertoMoir wrote: »

... you seem to think the process for getting a Liability Order granted for non payment of council tax is similar to getting a CCJ against someone then a warrant for bailiff action. It isn't anything like the same at all, and the process as described is perfectly normal [...] LOs are essentially rubber stamped by the metric tonne in a magistrates court.

Interesting. I take your point.

But, notwithstanding the fact that LO's are banged out by the dozen, what happened to natural justice? It's still a court proceeding after all.

You must surely have a right to present a defence (Bill of Rights, ECHR, right to a fair trial and so on)?

I find it hard to believe that a council can legally just go into court, make a wild accusation of non-payment, obtain an order and then set the bailiffs on some unsuspecting unfortunate.

CIS

Prior to the Liability Order being issued at least one Demand Notice, one Reiminder and the Court Summons must have been issued. Once these have been dispensed with then, unless there is a valid defence offered, then the Liability Order is granted. A further notice has to be issued prior to any bailiff action being taken (this notice is often included along with a regulation 36 notice (usually termed a 'Request For Information' form or similar) )

Note that documents have to be issued - not necessarily received.

I work in council tax recovery and do know that issues occur on both sides in the correct billing so I would advise you contact the local authority and check what notices have been issued and to which address.

I suspect the problem may lie in the address they were issued to - have tenants received and not passed on the letters ?. Strictly speaking Council Tax documents can be served on the last known address - if this was to the property then they can have been issued legally to that address.

RobertoMoir

WhiteHorse wrote: »

Interesting. I take your point.

But, notwithstanding the fact that LO's are banged out by the dozen, what happened to natural justice? It's still a court proceeding after all. You must surely have a right to present a defence (right to a fair trial and so on)?

It's a technical point rather than a trial in the conventional sense.
The question is: Can the council demonstrate reasonable proof that the debtor owes the money. Yes or No.

If yes, the LO is issued. If no, then obviously not.

Without wanting to spend ages debating all the odd exceptions that only crop up occasionally, the only viable "defence" at this point is a receipt that reads "paid in full".

I find it very hard to believe that a council can legally just go into court, make a wild accusation of non-payment, and then set the bailiffs on some unsuspecting unfortunate.

The councils do, of course, make mistakes but there's no "wild accusations" as such. In fact there's no "accusations" as such. There's cold hard financial statements that the council certify to be correct to the best of their knowledge. They will have an account for each year of council tax for each person, and will be able to demonstrate non-payment.

I would certainly believe that the local court is sloppy and takes the councils word for it when it shouldn't.

If you think each case is debated to any real depth then you'd certainly be disappointed, let me put it that way.

CIS

I would certainly believe that the local court is sloppy and takes the councils word for it when it shouldn't.

At the end of the day the council has no need to mislead the court and doesn't particularly want to have to use legal action - believe me, it takes a hell of a lot more cost and effort to chase a case through the recovery process than it does to get payment without having to get to that stage.

slowdive

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Haven't had a problem with Bromley Council before this but I think I need to shoulder some of the blame here.

Anyway I have my meeting in a couple of hours so I'll report back and let you know how it went.....am a bit nervous actually:(