Council totally messed up our council tax - help!

cheekyweelassie

Hi!
Please can anyone advise. I'm in a panic because I've just received our council tax bill for the whole year.
Basically we called Camden Council the week we moved in to this rented flat (back in May this year), to switch our direct debits over to our new flat. They had no listing for our flat, and insisted there were only two flats in our building. I assured them there were three. I have spoken to them several times to try and get someone to come out and have a look, and to re-list our flat with the proper address. The inspector finally came out two months ago. It appears it wasn't listed and our flat didn't officially exist until now! (goodness knows what the landlord was doing about it!). The inspector said we would probably only have to pay from the date it was officially listed.
We have today finally received a bill to our correct address, backdated all the way from May. Instead of the usual £110 per month, they now want monthly payments of £280 per month starting next month and the full total of £1117 for the period from May until next March.
I wondered if anyone had any experience of claiming a reduction using the Section 13A of the Local Government Act 1992 for 'exceptional circumstances', or if we have any other legal basis for just paying council tax from the point that the flat was actually registered. It is listed as a 'new liability'.
I'd be really grateful for some help, as I'm in a bit of a flap at the sight of this bill. We really needed a bit of good luck, and it hasn't happened.

CIS

The inspector finally came out two months ago. It appears it wasn't listed and our flat didn't officially exist until now!

Its not the job of the council to band properties , that's the Valuation Office Agency's (VOA) role. The council cannot legally bill you until the VOA have banded the property and officially added it to the council tax valuation list.


A Section 13A write off would not be considered by a council in these situations (its very rarely used) as they are not at fault. The council tax is due from the date the VOA have entered it in to the list and the council are required to collect it from anyone who is responsible for payment from that date.

cheekyweelassie

Hi CIS, thank you for the reply, and sorry for my naivety between the Council and the VOA.
I thought I'd go onto the VOA website to see if they'd updated the council tax banding list to include our flat, but there are still only two flats listed within our building. If I could find out the date they registered our flat, and if it was only this month, would we be able to persuade the council that we should only pay from that date?
I don't know what to do, but we were told by the inspector that we probably wouldn't have it backdated, so this feels really horrible.

CIS

If I could find out the date they registered our flat, and if it was only this month, would we be able to persuade the council that we should only pay from that date?

The council will bill you from the date the valuation office decide the property should be officially entered in to the list.

Red_dog_Sam

As advised, you'll have to pay the full charge and do so by the end of March. There's an argument that you would've been aware of your ongoing liability for council tax and could've budgeted accordingly despite not being billed - and some councils do take pre-payments to offset this sort of problem.
One thing you might be able to do is to move your instalment due date - but thats only if your Council provide options to do so - to make the instalments lower. For example, 1st of the month would now give you Dec, Jan, Feb & Mar so only 4 instalments. Move to the 28th and that could be split Nov,Dec,Jan,Feb and Mar so spread over five.

nobblyned

cheekyweelassie wrote: »

I don't know what to do, but we were told by the inspector that we probably wouldn't have it backdated, so this feels really horrible.

It's horrible to have to pay your council tax?? Same for everyone else, why should u be different?

You knew you should be paying it, why did you not put that money aside at the time?

cheekyweelassie

nobblyned wrote: »

It's horrible to have to pay your council tax?? Same for everyone else, why should u be different?

You knew you should be paying it, why did you not put that money aside at the time?

Well, it feels horrible because we were told we shouldn't have to pay until the property was officially registered on their list. We have been pestering them for six months to sort it out. That's why it feels horrible to then suddenly be asked for massive installments when we are not to blame. I will see what we can do to change the dates of the installments though to spread the cost a bit more.

This whole thing has really caused us a lot of problems. It has meant we are not on the electoral roll - so I wasn't able to vote in local elections, I've recently been turned down for a mere £10 per month mobile phone contract, and we are having to delay putting in an offer on a flat and applying for a mortgage until our electoral roll registration is sorted out.

CLAPTON

On a money saving website it may well be reasonable to avoid paying money where ever possible
but clearly you knew you were liable to pay council tax
clearly you have the money available even if you don't want to use it for this purpose.