Birmingham Council is threatening to take me to court. Advice?

Sandwich

I just tried calling the Citizens Advice Bureau. What an absolute joke. First of all when I tried to get their number their website was down, and when I finally did get it I called and was told by the automated response that there were no operatives available and to call back between 10.00 and 4.00 (this was at 11.30) and that the best I could get is some automated debt information if I stayed on the line.

Elle7

Citizens Advice in Birmingham was hit hard by the recent cuts, there are less services now, but the same number of people trying to use them. You'll probably have to make an appointment to get specialist council tax advice, the 'front line' people are usually only trained for debt issues.

I don't think ignorance is an excuse for backdating benefit, but if you are lucky, the maximum they were backdate is 6 months. Backdated money can take some time to come through after the benefit is granted.

Have you contacted the council and asked about smaller payments or a payment plan? You might have to be a bit pushy to get through to someone, but I think this debt will be yours at the end of the day, so you'll need to find a way to deal with it soon or you'll end up in court.

All the best x

RAS

Sandwich wrote: »

I have three local councillors but it doesn't seem as though they have surgeries. Their website says to just email or phone them with any problems.

What should I ask them to do? Ask the council to schedule smaller repayments or to backdate my claim for CTB?

Email them all and ask for a meeting.

Ask them to agree smaller repayments.

Nyfle

sunnyone wrote: »

You sound very proud that you are a debitor that will more than likely never repay their debts, to many of us that would be shameful.

I wonder how you've managed to come to such a conclusion from a statement that was, basically, akin to 'I'm in debt and it will take me a long time to pay it off'...

viktory

Sandwich wrote: »

Why would that be at all shameful when it is a Court of Law that has determined what this person can and cannot afford?

If the Court has determined that this person can only afford £10 then it's for a good reason. Better to pay the Court £10 per month and be able to pay the rent/put food on the table for his/her kids than to pay £100 per month and watch his/her kids starve.

Often, people lie to the court about their ougoings - and the courts often make utterly ludicrous decisions in respect of debtor orders.

RAS wrote: »

Get hold of your local councillor and speak to them. They are most likely to be able to get the Revenue people to see sense. Most councillors run surgeries most weeks. Who is yours and when is their next surgery? This should be on the Council web-site.

Instead of delaying matters further (and people often over estimate the powers councillors have), it makes far more sense for the OP to actually call the CT department and try to make an agreement with them.

CIS

If the court case is this Friday, then any offer you make direct to the council is likely to be too late for them to process.

Your best bet is to go to court with a breakdown of all your income and outgoings. The court will decide how much you have to pay.

The court cannot decide on payment at this stage - they can only grant the order or refuse it.

The only time the court can order payment is when a person has been summonsed for a means testing for potential committal to prison. One of the reasons the court will allow lower payments is because a person has the threat of a prison sentence if they default.

DonaldDoors

Sandwich wrote: »

Thanks for the advice guys. I knew CT liabilities were serious, but not this serious. I think I need to give you some more information to get the best advice. My situation is this:

I started a PhD, full time, in 2007. As a full-time student I was not liable for any CT. In February 2010 I switched to part-time for financial reasons (at my uni, PT students get a 75% discount on their fees). However, I wasn't doing any less hours. I was still studying more than 16 hours. Also, my university agreed to backdate my switch to part-time to the start of the academic year (September 2009) instead of calculating my fees for the year on a pro-rata basis, basically just to do me a favour.

I didn't inform the Council of my switch because I was still doing full-time hours, and I thought that my uni would inform the Council of any changes which would affect my liabilities.

Then, in May of this year I got a CT bill which was backdated to September 2009, i.e. the date I switched to part-time (at least on record).

With all of this being the case, I don't know what to do. Is my best bet to try to get a student exemption up until February 2010, which is when I requested the transfer to part-time, and just try to pay the outstanding balance (which would be just a few hundred pounds? Or is that pointless because my University backdated my transfer to September 2009?

Or, should I contact the Council and offer to pay some of the outstanding amount if they will agree to not take court action until my CT benefit application is processed? The total bill is for something like £1500 and they want immediate payment of one installment of £170. Would offering them something like £50 help, or would they likely refuse that?

I can't believe they would actually send someone to prison for not paying Council Tax, especially if it's for such a short duration. I'm sorry but that is a disgrace.

I am not sure that we have all the facts here. Or that we have matters straight. Liability and exemptions and discounts are different animals.

Liability goes in a hierarchy which is in the public domain as for example here. This refers to the person who has to pay and who can be chased for non payment. My understanding is that student partners cannot be liable though other partners can be.


If a house is occupied solely by students it is exempt altogether: no tax is payable.

The definition of a student would appear to be laid down in law. It seems that people writing up are not counted as students.

The question I have here is what your university counts as 'part time' and the legal definition of 'student' and whether the two mesh. I can't see that this is necessarily the case.

If you live alone and feel that your part time amounts to sufficient hours to comply with council tax definitions, which on the 75% view it might well, then you could appeal.

It isn't true that you have a duty to check that your bill is correct and tell the council if it isn't. This is an oversimplification.

You do have to provide the council with information it asks for in order to identify who is 'liable' if it asks. You do have a general duty to tell the council if you realise you are not paying when you should be, but it seems clear that you are still not quite clear on this, so I would not worry too much if you made a mistake.

If you live alone the council should be knocking 25% off the bill and it has just been judged that councils cannot refuse to 'backdate' this discount I believe.

I hope this may help you get your ideas straight.