Council Tax Liabilty Order

davehenry

I currently have an empty property and council tax is due for the last part of the financial year of £245. I advised the council that I could make this payment in one go and offered a monthly option. I was told that they could not accept this and a liabiliy order would have to be made, then they could accept a payment plan. This adds a further £65.

Can this be right? In any other commercial situation and I have done this in the past, I agreed a payemnt plan and it was accepted and they are all cleared.

The property will be rented by April all being well but I today I received a new bill with the full amount on, surely a discount is applicable for an empty property?

Dave :mad:

dancingfairy

Do the council know it is empty? There are 2 main discounts/exemptions you could apply for:
1) the first is a class C (I think) and is available for a maximum of 6 months for a completely empty and unfurnished property.
2) A second home discount of 10% which you can get if a home is furnished but empty or you are paying full council tax elsewhere . I don't know if you can go from the first one and then get the second discount thoguh - possibly not?

The council presumably have written to you to advise you of the bill due for the end of this year? They will be under pressure to collect the council tax before the end of the year to make their figures look good/better. Yes it is allowed and perfectly normal for a council to refuse a payment plan and take your to court and for you to incur the costs - otherwise you could pay a little, they don't take you to court, you stop paying, they threaten court etc etcand they wouldn't get anywhere. The legislation allows for them to get the Liability Order presuming they have followed correct procedure and billed you correctly. Once they have the liability order they are more likely to accept the payment plan because they know if you failt to keep to it they can apply for baiiffs or an attachment to earnings.
df