Wrongly summoned to court for council tax

Rhidian

My flatmate and I are full time students and therefore exempt from paying any council tax. We recently received an overdue payment warning for the whole year 2013-2014, which turned out to be due to the fact that we had forgotten to renew our exemption.

The day after, we personally handed in updated student exemption forms, and received a new bill in the post a few weeks later confirming that we owe no council tax for this year. However, a few days later we received a court summons - dated *after* this confirmation - claiming that we are liable for the original amount.

What should we do? Do we have to go to court, or can we get the summons rescinded since the council themselves admit that we owe them nothing? There is no way I'm paying the +1K we have been wrongly charged, but I worry that if I leave things we may end up with a liability order...

sharpy2010

You need to phone the council and ask what they are playing at.

CIS

The day after, we personally handed in updated student exemption forms, and received a new bill in the post a few weeks later confirming that we owe no council tax for this year. However, a few days later we received a court summons - dated *after* this confirmation - claiming that we are liable for the original amount.

The fact that you were sent a bill showing £0.00 means nothing if the council , for whatever reason, believe the exemption was awarded wrongly and have removed it. A council tax charge can be revised and a new bill issued at any time.

You need to speak with the council and find out what the problem is as they are the only one who can tell you why the notice was issued.

redpete

It seems odd that you received no correspondence for a year after you were meant to pay. I would have been straight on the phone to the council as soon as the summons arrived to ask what is happening. It could have been that the council applied for the summons before you put in the exemption and the court processed it while your exemption was going through.

I wouldn't be surprised if you had some costs to pay as a result of letting it go this far (uninformed speculation on my part there).

quantic

I was having some problems with the council recently, went on for about a year - in the end I found the best solution was to email them and detail the issues, then follow it up with a phone call.

The problem I was having was that each time I spoke to someone they had no record, if you email them first they will each be able to read the full story and it will hopefully help to get your issue resolved quicker.

Rhidian

We called the council twice on Thursday and each time waited without success for 30 mins in the queue before hanging up. We finally got through to them yesterday, only to be promptly informed that they were not discussing council tax over the phone as they were overloaded with queries about court orders.

So to get this straight:

1. We were mistakenly charged the council tax due to a problem with our exemption forms - receiving an overdue notice and losing our entitlement to pay the hypothetical amount we owe in instalments.

2. We rectified the problem within 24 hours, making a trip to their one-stop-shop to hand in the new forms *in person*.

3. Our exemption goes through, but we're nevertheless summoned to court to pay an extortionate amount of money, for the whole year in advance, that we don't owe.

4. The council refuse to talk to us about it over the phone.

We have sent an email, although I'm not expecting it to get us anywhere. Is there a third party we can report the council to, this kind of behaviour can surely not be justified?

ValHaller

Defend in court in person. Ask for costs.

matttye

Write to them recorded delivery explaining everything you've told us, and send a copy to the court.

When is your court date? Don't let it dwindle too long without seeking legal advice. However, it's unlikely you would get legal aid at this point in the proceedings. You may get it if you refuse/are unable to pay and the council are applying for a warrant to send you to prison.

pauletruth

think they are after a liabilities order they are no where near jail time yet.

CIS

Defend in court in person. Ask for costs.

The court does not really have any powers not to grant the order. The court have no say in whether a discount or exemption has been granted correctly.

If the council withdrew a discount or exemption as they believed it was incorrect then the bill and any action stand in law and the council can take recovery action - the court can only make a decision on whether the bill, reminder and summons were issued correctly (e.g made in the correct format, posted to you etc) and not the reason why the bill was issued.

If they later receive sufficient information to re-award a reduction then they can do but any action taken so far would stand as the law requires a person to pay as billed until such time as the matter has been resolved.

The only real route through this is to ask the council not to pursue the summons.