Court summons notr recognised by court..!?

kyuudousha

Hello,

Sorry if this has been addressed before but I was wondering... Blah blah got caught out by not paying council tax, however, oversight corrected and now up to date. I accept this but this is not my question but the below is:

I got a court summons, all on letter headed paper from the magistrates court, with the complainant being our local council. I paid over the outstanding amount plus the ludicrous court fees of £85 on an automated system (through their website). I also gave my details for a direct debit to be set up. Again, all automatically. In other words there was no human interaction between myself and the council.

I then rang the council to inform them and I was told by the automated system that because I had been subjuct to a court summons I was no longer able to pay by installments. However, I then get an email stating that the direct debit had been set up and was now having to pay £100 per month, which was £18 less than I should have been paying. See below:

With reference to your email and direct debit mandate.

Please note your direct debit payments will commence on the 5th September 2013 at £100.00 per month until the above balance is paid in full.

Should you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact our office on the telephone number below.

This means that I am indeed ahead of my payments to our council. However, I wanted to know if I still needed to attend court and, as I couldn't get hold of our council (because they are only open stupid times while I'm at work) I rang the courts. I then got told that the court summons does not exist with the magistrates court and in fact the courts have nothing to do with council tax!

So, I then emailed the council with this information and they replied thusly:


Thank you for your recent email.

Your account was summonsed for a Liability Order as you had failed to pay your Council Tax as instructed. In order to correctly issue a summons the Council was required to make a complaint to the Magistrates Court which was duly reviewed and signed by an officer of the Court.

As soon as the summons is issued you lose the right to pay your Council Tax by instalments, however upon discussion of the account with an advisor we may agree to temporarily hold any recovery action pending an acceptable arrangement.

You are not required to attend the Magistrates Court unless you feel you have a legal and valid defence (Please be aware failure to pay as instructed in your bill is not an acceptable defence.) [What!?]

As long as you continue to pay £100.00 per month as agreed with my collegue we will withhold further recovery action. Failure to pay as agreed will result in your account being passed to our Bailiffs.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Just to be sure on this I emailed the courts so that I could get a reply in writing and these are the replies I recieved from the court:


Dear Sir

I am sorry we do not issue summonses you would need to contact the police or the issuing body.

Regards

So I pushed the matter further and they replied and quoted my summons number:


Please see my reply from this morning those numbers mean nothing to us.

Once again I pushed a bit further, giving the full details and I finally got this response:

Dear Sir

I am very sorry but we do not have any information regarding Council Tax they just use our facilities.

So, hang on a minute. The Council Tax is nothing to do with the courts..? Who was the magistrate that duly authorised this action? What the hell is going on?

I also note that the council has stated that my account has been subject to 'court action' despite the 'court' date not being until 20th August (some week and a half away!). I have also noted that they have mentioned bailiffs. Only courts can authorise bailiffs, and as the courts have denied all knowledge of anything to do with this, other than the council 'renting' the courts building, how can the council authorise bailiffs? Private bailiffs are not allowed to collect court sanctioned debts.

Can anybody tell me what I have missed?

Many best

Kyu

CIS

So, hang on a minute. The Council Tax is nothing to do with the courts..? Who was the magistrate that duly authorised this action? What the hell is going on?

The court authorise the issuing of the summonses - a magistrate has to approve the list before the summons are issued (although in most cases the council print and post the actual summons)
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/613/regulation/34/made

I have also noted that they have mentioned bailiffs. Only courts can authorise bailiffs

Once a liability order is granted the the council tax (administration & enforcement regs 1992) allow the council to instruct a bailiff without further reference to a court.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/613/regulation/45/made

and as the courts have denied all knowledge of anything to do with this, other than the council 'renting' the courts building,

You clearly spoke to court staff with no knowledge of what they do. The court have to authorise the issuing of the summons. They also have to authorise the granting of the liability order. This isn't the 'council hiring the court' as the magistrates are under a statutory duty to hear council tax cases but they are allowed to bill the council for the paperwork and time involved.

CIS

This means that I am indeed ahead of my payments to our council.

You may be now but if you weren't before the summons was issued (or you were paying late) then the summons was issued correctly - only the council can confirm the full details.

I then rang the council to inform them and I was told by the automated system that because I had been subjuct to a court summons I was no longer able to pay by installments. However, I then get an email stating that the direct debit had been set up and was now having to pay £100 per month, which was £18 less than I should have been paying. See below:

You lose the right to pay by installments once the summon has been issued. The council have given you a re-payment plan but there is no requirement for them to have done so.

I also note that the council has stated that my account has been subject to 'court action' despite the 'court' date not being until 20th August (some week and a half away!)

This is correct.

le_loup

OP I think you are trying to be a bit too clever here. You've got away with a good means of settling the problem you caused.
Accept it with good grace.

kyuudousha

Sorry if it appeared I was trying to be clever and I am fully aware it was a problem of my own making. I have already accepted the predicamnet I am now in with 'good grace' and have sorted it to the councils benefit in fairness, as I am now ahead.

I was more concerned to find out that the court in which I was due to appear have no record of my name, the summons number or even the date of my appearance.

I am also concerned that there is no debt now so why do I still get a liability order? Surely if this were a civil claim, once the arrangement had been put into place then any further intervention by the court is dropped and that's the end of the matter? I may well of course be wrong and I don't mind that.

Many best

John_Pierpoint

The liability order means that the council don't have to go through this rigmarole all over again the moment you again fall behind with your "agreed" schedule of payments.

The £85 charge for use of a computerised system, could be seen in the light of the DLVC's charge for late car tax and HMRC's penalty of £100 for late submission of documentation for Income Tax purposes, and perhaps local authorities' attempts to impose parking charges out of hours, when there is no shortage of parking spaces to ration.

CIS

I am also concerned that there is no debt now so why do I still get a liability order?

But there is - once the right to pay by installments has been lost then the full years balance becomes due, not just what you would have paid to date based on the original installments.