Unpaid council tax

Fuzzy_Duck

I'd like to know if I have a leg to stand on with this or whether I just have to suck it up.

Came home yesterday to a letter from a debt collection agency telling me they'd sent the baliffs round for unpaid council tax but I wasn't in. The entire letter was pretty aggressive in my opinion- it asked whether I wanted to pay up or did I want them to take my stuff away and sell it at auction and warned me that if I didn't contact them they'd sent the baliff back.

Now I might be able to understand such a heavy handed tactic if I had decided not to pay my council tax and was busy cackling ever day about how I'd got away with it. However this debt is two years old and I had absolutely no idea I owed them anything. I used to simply pay up when I got letters from the council and now I pay through direct debit.

Luckily I do have savings for emergencies such as these, and paid up instantly. We phoned the council first as we had no idea how it had happened, and it appears they were unaware we had moved house. Typically we hadn't phoned them about it, choosing to do it online through their specific form. I suppose we just felt it was more convenient at the time but of course it means we don't have any evidence we did it.

Having said that, the council have contacted us numerous times over these two years and we received plenty of letters to the correct address in our time there. The day I received the letter, I had even had an email from them regarding the local elections, so I do feel they had various ways of getting in touch with us but didn't. We moved again recently and told them over the phone this time, but again we weren't told about all this debt we owed.

Upon discussing it with them it turns out the amount quoted by the debt collection agency was wrong and we also owed them money in fees, such as a fee for a court summons letter (sent to our old address) and a fee for paying it by card- which of course I did because it was the fastest way of sorting out this mess.

I have complained to the council about them not contacting me initially and the threatening letter from the debt collection agency. I also pointed out to them that if some random person turned up at my door demanding money I would have thought it a scam as they hadn't bothered to inform me- how would I have known the debt was genuine?

I had no issue with paying off the debt (although it would have been nice if I'd known about it sooner) but I think it's a bit cheeky expecting me to pay their extortionate admin fees when it was probably their poor admin that failed to record my new address in the first place. I still don't really get what happened to be honest so I'm hoping they'll at least look into it properly and be able to confirm when and how they got our new address and when they realised we owed them money.

Anyone have a similar experience to this and know what to expect? There are loads of complaints on the internet about the council and this debt collection agency for their heavy handed approach and I agree with them that it's not on. I'd have been really worried if I couldn't have paid it off instantly and had to hide from the baliffs!