Council Tax Direct Debit not taken - a big bill this morning

anamenottaken

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

I thought you had to set up a new direct debit each year? Maybe the first year was taken but not the rest.

I must say that when my boyfriend was in charge of paying the council tax, he refused to set up a direct debit and said he'd pay it manually each month. Of course he kept forgetting to pay it and every month we'd get a reminder letter. Finally he stopped being an idiot and set up a direct debit. But this year we somehow forgot to set up the new one and we missed April's and May's payments. We noticed around mid-May when I was updating our money spreadsheet. We immediately paid the 2 month's worth and set up a new direct debit for June onwards, but I was very surprised that we hadn't heard from the council.

I get the feeling that lots of people don't track the money going out of their account. We usually do ours once a month but we'd got behind, that's why we hadn't noticed we hadn't paid.

There's a difference between a Direct Debit (DD) and a Standing Order (SS).

A DD is set up once and, for Council Tax, it is would be for the Council to collect the correct amount each month. It would probably be for a slightly different amount in the first month (to deal with odd amounts) and then nine regular payments. The annual amount is also likely to have gone up at least once in the last four years.

What your boyfriend seems to have done is set up an SO - which would have to be either set up afresh each year (if set to terminate with the tenth payment) or be adjusted each year depending on the amount of council tax due.

jonesMUFCforever

jeffdjeff wrote: »

It was a straight-forward request for advice, I don't know why you think 'it's the answer we didn't want'. Having received this letter on a Bank Holiday weekend and been asked for full payment within 7 days some flexibility around the payment would be helpful.

It does not matter how many bank accounts you have one of them would have had a D/D set up on it to pay council tax (If I have read earlier posts correctly).
If this is the case you would have made provision for that amount every month (but did not notice the account balance being higher and higher?).
The money should be in the account shouldn't it or have you spent it??

My personal opinion is that you knew that the council tax had not been paid and as you had not heard from them assumed you could get away with it.

jeffdjeff

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

It does not matter how many bank accounts you have one of them would have had a D/D set up on it to pay council tax (If I have read earlier posts correctly).
If this is the case you would have made provision for that amount every month (but did not notice the account balance being higher and higher?).
The money should be in the account shouldn't it or have you spent it??

My personal opinion is that you knew that the council tax had not been paid and as you had not heard from them assumed you could get away with it.

Are you serious? You honestly think that we knew all along and were hoping to 'get away with it'? What planet do you live on?

jeffdjeff

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

It does not matter how many bank accounts you have one of them would have had a D/D set up on it to pay council tax (If I have read earlier posts correctly).
If this is the case you would have made provision for that amount every month (but did not notice the account balance being higher and higher?).
The money should be in the account shouldn't it or have you spent it??

My personal opinion is that you knew that the council tax had not been paid and as you had not heard from them assumed you could get away with it.

When you say we hadn't heard from the council, do you mean apart from the annual bills stating 'This is for information only, no further action required, you are paying by direct debit'. I'm astounded that someone with so many posts and who has been 'thanked' by so many people would honestly think we knew all along and thought we could get away with it - please tell me you're joking.

CIS

Providing that the reminder is for 4 years Council Tax, probably a figure of £4000 + , then there has to have been some sort of suppression on the reminder at the council's side.

The most common Council Tax system, the Northgate system, does allow open ended suppression of reminders which would stop anything further than a demand notice being issued. Other systems willhave a similar mechanism.

I have seen cases where reminders etc have been suppressed long term but any authority should have checks in place to stop long term suppression of notices, as an anti-fraud measure if nothing else.

You need to contact the authority to determine why a reminder has taken so long to issue when you should have received one 4 years or so ago if the DD has never been taken.

Ultimately though the onus is on the tax payer to ensure that the Council Tax is paid.

Mark_In_Hampshire

jeffdjeff wrote: »

As for who made the mistake, if we provided the direct debit details are we liable if they chose not to take any payments?

Just to clear this one up:

If you pay a bill by sending a payment, you remain liable for making payment.

If you invite a payee to debit your account directly, then you remain liable for making payment.

Nothing is altered.

Should the payee not take funds as they are meant to, the person in breach of contract/the law is you, not them.

A standing order is a better choice; at least if it "goes wrong" it's your/your bank's fault, not the payee's.

jeffdjeff

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

Just to clear this one up:

If you pay a bill by sending a payment, you remain liable for making payment.

If you invite a payee to debit your account directly, then you remain liable for making payment.

Nothing is altered.

Should the payee not take funds as they are meant to, the person in breach of contract/the law is you, not them.

A standing order is a better choice; at least if it "goes wrong" it's your/your bank's fault, not the payee's.

That's useful to know, so it appears you can provide your dd details, they can send you bills telling you on what dates they are going to take payments and for how much, but they don't actually have to take the payments? Does the Direct Debit guarantee cover any of this do you know? Should they at least be liable for telling you they haven't taken payment, or that there has been a problem trying to take the payment?

opinions4u

jeffdjeff wrote: »

That's useful to know, so it appears you can provide your dd details, they can send you bills telling you on what dates they are going to take payments and for how much, but they don't actually have to take the payments? Does the Direct Debit guarantee cover any of this do you know?

No, it doesn't. As you provided the DD details, I'm puzzled as to how you managed to confuse which of the 3 bank accounts it went out of.

Should they at least be liable for telling you they haven't taken payment, or that there has been a problem trying to take the payment?

That would be a sensible process. Incidentally, your bank tells you on every statement what payments have been taken.

Still, you've had your question answered numerous times so far. You're liable for the amount that's due and need to have a reasonable conversation with your local authority about how you are going to repay this.

jeffdjeff

opinions4u wrote: »

No, it doesn't. As you provided the DD details, I'm puzzled as to how you managed to confuse which of the 3 bank accounts it went out of.

That would be a sensible process. Incidentally, your bank tells you on every statement what payments have been taken.

Still, you've had your question answered numerous times so far. You're liable for the amount that's due and need to have a reasonable conversation with your local authority about how you are going to repay this.

Ok thanks, I was under the impression that a direct debit would simplfy things, it seems though to be certain you still need to check every month to ensure the payment has been taken? That's useful to know as it could have big implications, for example if a car insurance or life assurance premium was not taken I'm assuming you would not be covered and it would be your fault?

Sandrock

I honestly cannot believe that you didn't realise the money was not coming out each month.

Did you not once check your statement(s) in 4 years?
Did you not think your balance was a bit higher than it should otherwise be at least once in that 48 month period?

I pay my Council Tax by cheque, but it comes to £145 a month (lowish banding), so over 4 years that'd come to nearly £7,000. That is an awful lot to have surplus after four years and I can only come to the conclusion that either -

1/ You knew it wasn't being paid, but thought you'd keep quiet until you were asked to pay. Perfectly understandable, but if this was the case you'd obviously keep money aside to pay for this in the case you were asked at a future date (now). Someone I know had a similar thing with the water company not charging them, they've put aside £50 a month for the last 17 years in case of a request to pay - tidy little sum by now with the interest added.

2/ You have a large amount of cash in the account which means that a £145 non payment barely makes a dent - again, understandable. I've run current account balances at £4-5k before which would make a small payment harder to detect. However, in this case, you'd almost certainly have the money to pay the debt off in full now.

You do owe the money, and you will have to pay it. The council is slightly at fault for not picking this up earlier and should be able to help to come to an arrangement to pay the amount. I would suspect if you are both working they would want the balance cleared within 12 months, on top of this years council tax owed.

Does your council take credit cards? You could perhaps finance this on a 0% deal if you can get it.