Letter received from Council claiming I owe £1000's!!!!

biggady_bong

Today I received a letter from the Council claiming that I owe £4000+ from January 2006. I paid off a lot of debts from my inheritance which my Dad left after his death but I had no idea about this one. They have sent me an original letter from 31/5/2006 which states that I was not receiving Housing Benefit at the time due to a query to my entitlement. I wasn't working at the time and was eligible for all that I claimed at the time. The sum on the original letter is £2722.91 and the new letter is £4012.91 _pale_ Should I get advice from somewhere like CAB for this or should I play dumb and hope it becomes statute barred in 8 weeks? The stupid thing is, the house in question was a council house, a 1 bedroom flat with a supposed rent of £620 pcm. It was a dive!!!! They then moved me somewhere even worse, before they sent the letter to the old address so I wouldn't have received this letter anyway. I am now in a different house and they have tracked me down. Any advice would be greatly received

lindann_2

I do not think c tax can be statue barred sorry, have you paid any Ctax on your new place., l am afraid you may have to ring them before it gets nasty passed on to bailiffs. Can you prove you was not working at that time in question, it seem strange that the council/ or yourself did not change your address.. good luck on this one, l think someone more in tune with council tax and the problems of owing.

fatbelly

Is it rent arrears?

Any indication that they already have a ccj against you?

Red_dog_Sam

This won't become statute barred ( and nor will it count as a CCJ). If they have a liability order from the magistrates court - which they proably have - they will be able to make an attachment to your earnings or call in the bailiffs, or even move to a commitall hearing with the threat of improsonment- so you need to respond to the Council and try to make suitable arrangements to pay. Check that you have got any discounts you could be due (e.g. single occupier discount). Do you have rent arrears too? If so, the Council may operate a fair debt polict towards people with multiple debts to the council which will qualify you for a generous repayment scheme rather than standard enforcement action. If the council has a money advice section you can talk to them and yes - the CAB would offer advice but they can't make it go away so you should still contact the council and start to make payments whilst you try to find out what happend to your CTB entitlement. Unfortunatley, it's unliklely that will be backdated now unless the Council can be shown to have made an error.

biggady_bong

It is not for council tax, which I realise is a different type of debt as it can be recovered. I have researched the Liability Act which states that no rent arrears can be actioned after 6 years, and 6 years being 13th January 2012, I think it's a last ditch attempt to get me to pay up. They are claiming that I owe this amount, when throughout my time of claiming and working, I have never been in a job which gave a full loss of housing benefit. I have always been entitled to something or the other. CAB aren't open in my area today but they are tomorrow so I'll give them a call then. I wish I had £4000+ lying around, don't we all but I don't. I genuinely think this whole thing has been caused out of error on their behalf.

fatbelly

I think you have answered your own questions - if it becomes statute barred in January 2012, then this is a last-ditch 'letter before action'.

So it's a case of 'do you feel lucky?' If they don't get around to starting a court claim, it becomes unenforceable. If they do, you are going to end up with a ccj .