Non payment of council tax expected from April 2013

NPowerUser

With many councils now forced to charge low income families around £5 a week from April 2013, the guardian writes a very interesting article regarding expected widespread non payment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/15/local-authorities-residents-council-tax

What are your circumstances?

Can you afford another fiver a week coming out of your income if you happen to live in an area affected by the council tax benefit cuts?

princessdon

It wouldn't bother me at all.

CIS

Can you afford another fiver a week coming out of your income if you happen to live in an area affected by the council tax benefit cuts?

Its already been raised as a massive issue in respect of budgets - for a customer its predicted to be about £3-4 per week which many won't pay, for whatever reason, - to them, individually, its no problem if they don't pay but to a council its potentially several thousand people not paying £3-4 per week. Easily £150K plus per year for a large authority.

enabledebra

Are there estimates of the recovery costs involved and is it likely to be via deductions from other benefits?

NPowerUser

enabledebra wrote: »

Are there estimates of the recovery costs involved and is it likely to be via deductions from other benefits?

What about if they are are a low earning couple with no benefit entitlements except council tax benefit?

Attachment to earnings or CCJ?

speedyturtle

No matter who you are and what benefits you are receiving if the government decides that you have to pay than you will have to pay otherwise you would have a bailiff standing on your doorstep. Sadly in all this its gonna be the bailiff companies who are gonna make money.

BigAunty

I can see those in social housing struggling if they also get hit with HB reduction for having unoccupied rooms, particularly for single people on JSA compared, for example, with a couple where they are on ESA or a family with kids who get much more income compared to a job seeker.

CIS

Are there estimates of the recovery costs involved and is it likely to be via deductions from other benefits?

Recovery action would involve the issuing of a court summons and liability order - at the moment my local authority cost this as £84.00 and most other local authorities are about the same.

We've still to decide in depth what will happen to recover the small balances but its been pretty much decided that they will be too small to justify a bailiff and therefore attachment of benefit is likely to be the route we taken - currently recoverable at £3.55 per week.

otherwise you would have a bailiff standing on your doorstep

Very unlikely for the small balances that will be dealt with in most of these cases.

Attachment to earnings or CCJ?

CCJ's are very, very unusual for council tax arrears (its an option but I've yet to find a local authority who uses them). Attachment of Earnings is an option for the council but so is the use of a bailiff.

CIS

Personally I feel the government have missed the boat with not amending the collection & enforcements regs from April to allow the use of an Attachment of Benefit Order with out a court summons having been issued.

It would be relatively straight forward to make a change to the regs to allow the order to be issued once a person has lost the right to pay by instalments without the cost (and hassle) of having to have a Liability Order first.

leveller2911

Our local Council have a Council tax recovery rate of 98.5% and do send in the bailiffs. I don't see their recovery rate dropping as they are very focussed on recovering the debt.They also see this as income generating as they no longer send out reminders even though under government rules they are obliged to.We fell foul of this when my wife was ill, we genuinely forgot to pay one months CT and we got hit with £80-00 court liabiliy order. When we phoned up we were told they don't always send out reminders now.


Income generating such as this will increase.



Small amounts owing soon rise to a figure they view as being viable for the work involved in recovering the debt.

CIS

Our local Council have a Council tax recovery rate of 98.5% and will send in the bailiffs. I don't see their recovery rate dropping as they are very focussed on recovering the debt.

I can guarantee they will drop unless you live in a very affluent area without many benefit claimants.