Council Tax Error

gingerstudios

My first Post so please be kind,

Im looking for advise, We took out a First time buyers morgage with Halifax and with it they paid 1/2 our first years Council Tax. Approx £750 on full year. the bill finally arrived and it was just under £900 bill for the rest of the year. We send all the forms off and that was that, or so we thought. We then started to renovate the property and got a structual exception on the propertuy for 12 months this runs out on the 27th July so our new bill arrived for the remaining months £423ish (50% reduction - house still not finished and empty) When i enquired about the Halifax payment i was told that the council hadnt heard off my bank about any payments, one long call to my back discovered they had paid the council on 5th Nov last year (2009) so i got back on to the council and they then found the money! they had credited the amount £449.74 to my Mum and Dads council bill? they had got mixed up and credited the address i get my post sent too!

Now they want to take it back off my mum and dad and credit me. fine but due to the mistake and my mum and dad not noticing, there bill will shoot up to double what they pay now for the remaining Tax year (Surely thats not fair and i would like to do that to them!)

What can i do and can i take it anywhere?

Thank Keiron

Red_dog_Sam

If Halifax paid the Council directly, I would've thought they would have to quote a Council Tax account reference number to pay the money onto - and the only place they could get that from is you. Now the money is being allocated to the right account though, your parents monthly payment has shot up to compensate - something the council would have no option about - they can't just cancel it out. Most people pay over 10 months April to January so they can ask the Council to extend payments over 12 months to get longer to pay (Feb and March) and so a lower instalment.

CIS

Now they want to take it back off my mum and dad and credit me. fine but due to the mistake and my mum and dad not noticing, there bill will shoot up to double what they pay now for the remaining Tax year (Surely thats not fair and i would like to do that to them!)

What can i do and can i take it anywhere?

Red_dog_sam is right in that the money will have to be paid so if they move the money then your parents will have to foot the extra charge.

How did they not realise something was up with their payments ?, if they had made the payments as per the initial bill they received then they would have been massively in credit at the year end.

If the error was the council's then if they are decent about the matter they will spread the instalments however they have no compulsion to do so as the onus is on the tax payer to ensure they are being billed correctly.