Council tax payment

colin_no_1

Hello,
I've searched all over the place for an answer to this question but can only find questions and answers around missing a monthly payment.

Anyway, a bit of background before my question - I like to pay bills upfront rather than pay by direct debit as most companies charge more for it and I'd rather not have the bother of paying bills monthly.

In April last year I didn't receive a council tax bill. Knowing that I would still be charged whether I got the bill or not, I paid what I had been charged the year before (£755) with the plan that I'd pay the difference when I knew what it was.

I received no post at all from the council until mid December when I received a letter dated some time in May that said I owed £30 and I had 14 days to pay or I'd lose the right to pay by instalments. I paid the remainder that day.

I heard nothing until 8th January when a bailiff showed up to take my stuff saying that I owed £123.44 (I wasn't sure if this amount was made up on the spot or made up earlier) Apparently, I had been taken to court in August.

I contacted the council who recalled the debt but I was told that I still owed £70 for court and summons costs. To dispute this, I was told that I had to write to a member of their staff who was known to be off sick, strangely by email to ensure a quicker reply.

I contacted them today, my email had to be "dug out" and I was basically told that there is nothing I can do, I owe them £70


My questions -
why is it that they only have to prove that they sent letters but don't have to make any other attempt to ensure that the recipient received them?
At the start of the year, I paid them over 9 months instalments with the next payment being due in January. How can they take me to court for none payment when, at the time, I had effectively overpaid them?
Is there anything that I can do to prevent having to pay this?

Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated.
Colin

Savvy_Sue

Are you being sent your bill by email, perchance? We ran into problems last year as I hadn't realised that having registered on the council system, they would no longer be posting a bill to us ... First I knew we hadn't paid it was when we had a letter saying we were in arrears - yes I know I 'should' have realised we were due to start paying, but I hadn't.

Next question, are the letters addressed correctly? May sound obvious, but there was a recent thread where the CT bills were being sent to the WRONG address!

Personally, I'd email an appeal, but send a copy by registered post, setting out what happened here.

CIS may come along later with better advice ...

colin_no_1

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your questions, the local council doesn't send bills by email. I was told it was because you can prove you posted something but you can't prove you emailed. This lie was told to me by a council worker who didn't realise that I work in IT. I don't know why they don't use email.

If I remember correctly, the one piece of mail that I have received from them this year did have the correct address on, correct enough to get to my house anyway. It might still be a good idea for me to check that they do have the correct address on file. A council tax bill is one form of ID that can be used for credit, can't it?

My appeal to them went into slightly more detail. At the time, somebody at the magistrates court told me that I could make a statutory declaration saying that I had not received a summons. I was fully willing to do that and said so in my appeal. However, when I contacted the court again to talk to their legal advisor, I was told that it wouldn't help as council tax hearings are not arranged by the court. The court is only there as a place to hold the hearing. He was unwilling to help me further and advised seeing a solicitor to take it further.

I haven't yet received any notification from them that I now owe £70. I'm going to have to keep phoning them to make sure they don't take me to court for that

antonic

I assume the reason that the Council dont use email is the same as to why HMRC dont use email - its called data security.

The email will be sent by the Council but there is no certainty that it hasnt been intercepted and altered before you get it.

colin_no_1

I'm not talking about them sending anything confidential. This site, for example, informs you by email that you have had a reply and to see it you must logon to the site. My bank operates in a similar way and I'm sure yours does. The council could do it if they wanted to but this is a bit off-topic.

Savvy_Sue

Apparently, our council don't send the bill by email, they send an email to tell you to log into your account to see the new bill.

It all went wrong last year, but I'm confidently expecting that email this year. And we do now have a DD in place.

Forgot to mention earlier: CT is one of those bills where you do NOT get charged more to pay that way. And in fact I can't think of anywhere I pay MORE to pay by DD - utilities all give a discount, AFAIK.

In your position, I'd revisit your decision not to use DDs for this kind of thing. The DD guarantee is great at getting money back if it shouldn't have been deducted, IME.