Council Housing

jrphuntley

Hi,

We moved out of our council house about two years ago now, we have just recently received a bill from the council for removing the carpet and furniture.

We left the furntiture with a letter saying it was to be offered to the next tenant or given to a charity, who usually collect things free of charge.

Is there any way to not pay as i feel they have taken to long to bill us.

Also how much are you looking at for removing carpet?

James

BitterAndTwisted

Quite honestly, you should have enquired about leaving or taking these things before you left the property. Most LA's insist that the property is cleared of old tat and they often clarify this in their Tenant Handbooks, I know that mine does. I think you'll find that the Local Authority can take as long as they like to bill you and you could also find that they don't have to justify to you what the actual charges to them were: they could impose a flat fee to all ex-tenants who don't clear their properties properly.

Incyder

jrphuntley wrote: »

We left the furntiture with a letter saying it was to be offered to the next tenant or given to a charity, who usually collect things free of charge.

You should have got that sorted before you left, and left the house empty.
Obviously you rated it as junk or else you would have sold it or taken it.

00ec25

no sympathy here

at a time when 100's of council employees are facing redundancy and council budgets are being slashed, why should they not recover costs they incurred in clearing your tat. All power to them for going back 2 years to identify costs they can still recover.

you left a letter, who did you expect to action that?
Answer: the council when they took possession back, but they do not work for free,. Even if they contacted a charity as you expected, the council employee doing so would still expect to be paid their wages while they were working on that task so it cost the council.