PLEASE HELP- Council Tax Application for your commitment to prison

CIS

Thank you so much for your advice and the information, I will follow up on this now! I have never been visited by baliffs, the only contact I have had this whole year is letters, and I have always rung them as soon as I recieved them, I found it very strange that rather than sieze my property (not that I have anything at all!) they would rather send me to prison and cost the country money! I will follow your advice now, thank you again for taking the time to reply!

On this basis it would be even less likely that committal would be undertaken by a magistrate as they expect the council to have tried to other methods of recovery first.

its not a done deal that you will go to jail as its not up to the council whether you go to jail or not its up to the judge (few people are sent to jail for council tax debt) the judge may tell you to pay £1 £5 £10 per month

Short of actually remitting an amount any re-payment order by the magistrate must pay the balance within 3 years as it would be made under a suspended sentence and its been deemed that 3 years is the maximum reasonable period for a sentence to be hanging over a person.

This has finally ended today, as I have received a letter telling me I must pay £1121 immediately, or they will be making an application to the magistrates court to have me committed to prison for up to 90 days, obviously I don't have this money, and have no way of getting it and am now terrified that they are going to turn up any minute and cart me off to prison.

That's a low amount for committal cases as the costs are about £250.00 for the case to be heard (these costs are recoverable).

For a council to try committal on this amount they must be fairly confident that the magistrates would support the councils application. The council will be looking at your situation and why you haven't paid and why, if you had the option, you didn't claim council tax benefit.

Have you made any payments towards your current years council tax ?

MadThatter10

Thanks for the reply CIS.
On the letter I have recieved it states that I owe £1121.08, but that if it goes to court (if I dont reply immediately) then I will be liable for minimum costs of £290, so the costs are on top of the £1121?

I have paid all of this years payments, and am up to date, I would have hoped that this would have gone in my favour, and they would have been more willing to accept a lower repayment of the debt, but it seems not

CIS

The costs will be on top of the current balances.

I still suspect what you have received is a 'final chance' letter which is to try and get payment before attempting committal. My authority issues them as a final chance to discuss payment.

The only way to go now is to contact the council and discuss payment options.