Historical Rent arrears I had no idea I had

whatda123

I need some advice. I am a council tenant and have been for the past 9 years. I was just contacted by my council out of the blue, telling me, that I owe over £200 pounds for the property I lived in between 2005 and 2008. This was a temporary accommodation and as far as I am aware I paid my rent properly and moved out of the property without owing anything.
I have no idea where this amount came from and why am I being told about it now, all these years later. The council had never mentioned I owed this money before and the fact it's been that long makes me feel a bit uneasy.
What should I do about this and am I legally obliged to pay this after all this time? Does the council have the legal power to ask for this money? What are my rights.

I would appreciate your help

thequant

whatda123 wrote: »

I need some advice. I am a council tenant and have been for the past 9 years. I was just contacted by my council out of the blue, telling me, that I owe over £200 pounds for the property I lived in between 2005 and 2008. This was a temporary accommodation and as far as I am aware I paid my rent properly and moved out of the property without owing anything.
I have no idea where this amount came from and why am I being told about it now, all these years later. The council had never mentioned I owed this money before and the fact it's been that long makes me feel a bit uneasy.
What should I do about this and am I legally obliged to pay this after all this time? Does the council have the legal power to ask for this money? What are my rights.

I would appreciate your help

first thing they should give you a breakdown of what and why you owe the money.

second,any monies over 6 years are unrecoverable (check this as there some exemptions to debts to councils such as council tax)

thirdly, £200 for 2/3 years sounds like the rates element of your rent. you need to ask why they didn't collect this at the time and what right they have to collect them now. I've known councils come a cropper trying to evict people for failure to pay their rates by declaring the person has failed to pay their rent (It's not rent!)

TBagpuss

I agree- it would be entirely reasonable to write to the council (keep a copy) stating that you believe that you paid all of your rent throughout the relevant period and had no arrears relating to the property. Ask them to confirm that the letter was sent in error and that you do not have any oustanding debt. It may be worth pointing out that you have been their tenant continuously since 2005 and that there has been nothing at any time since 2005 to suggest that any money was owing.

If they persist, then write again, ask them to set out how the figure has been arrived at, what it relates to, why they have taken over 5 years (possibly up to 8 years) to raise the issue.

does the letter you have recieved tell you which period of the tenancy the 'arrears' relate to? Some of it may already be statute-barred.

If it turns out that there is anything owing, then they should allow you to agree an affordable payment arrangement.

Do the council have any policies available on their website, detailing how they handle arrears?

whatda123

The letter they sent if very vague:
"I am writing about the arrears of 204.37 owing on your account for the above property, which ended on 21. December 2008."
This is the only info regarding me owing this money and the rest of the page about how to pay it back.
I just phoned them and they said they were doing some checks and found out I owed them this money.
It is really infuriating to be contacted now and having no way of remembering or checking when and how this amount happened form my side of the story. They will send a statement of payments but I have a feeling it's not going to be as simple as that as they have made mistakes in the past.

thequant

Ask the council for a breakdown of the debts (i.e. your rent statements). It a requirement of the pre-action protocols that anyone who wants to enforce a debt has to show how the debt arose. A letter saying you owe us £xxx does not cut it in court.

I had a similar thing a few years back, the council wrote to me aledging I owed £200, I requested and was sent the statements.

To my amazement the statement showed I owed zilch.

I raised this with council and was given all sorts of reason (computer/system errors) as to why I owed the money.

I pointed out, I will not pay and a court wont make me pay until I have a statement that's clearly shows how the debt occurred.

Council then sent me exactly the same statement that showed the debt as zero, but with an entry at the bottom of the statement written in biro saying "+£200".

Council were then informed I was not willing to enter any further correspondence regarding the matter, that they were free to take legal action against me but didn't have a leg to stand on.

Also I informed them that should any paperwork materialise in future that showed me owing said monies that I would be retain the statements they had sent me as proof that changes to their records had been "manually created"