Council Tax from 2000

graisbeck

Hi,

Just over a week ago I received a letter dated 06.02.14 from the local authority regarding outstanding council tax at an address I left in 2000.
The letter contains the following:

"I would advise you that I am holding in abeyance a Liability Order granted by the (local) Magistrates Court on 14th November 2007.

Please contact me within the next 14 days to discuss a suitable arrangement to clear the figure shown.

Failure to contact me will result in further action being taken against you, i.e. your account being passed to a designated bailiff for collection."

I have not yet contacted them and the amount they are talking about is £817.85, which I cannot afford right now.

Can someone please give me some advice on what to do?

Tixy

First you need to establish what period the council tax relates to and therefore whether you are liable for this debt. If you are then you'll need to come up with a repayment proposal.

Does the letter specify the date the council tax relates to?

Do you think it is possible/likely that you did not pay all the council tax due up to the date you left?
Do you think it is likely that you didn't inform the council of the date you moved out of the property?

The liability order would likely have been within 6years of the date the council tax was due, which is why I wonder if it may be for a period after you left the property and were no longer liable to pay it.

graisbeck

Tixy wrote: »

First you need to establish what period the council tax relates to and therefore whether you are liable for this debt. If you are then you'll need to come up with a repayment proposal.

Does the letter specify the date the council tax relates to?

Do you think it is possible/likely that you did not pay all the council tax due up to the date you left?
Do you think it is likely that you didn't inform the council of the date you moved out of the property?

The liability order would likely have been within 6years of the date the council tax was due, which is why I wonder if it may be for a period after you left the property and were no longer liable to pay it.

Hi Tixy,

The letter does not state any dates. I do remember asking a friend to hand the flat keys in to the local authority as I left the area in a hurry fleeing violence. I have never seen this friend since then. After staying with another friend for a while, I managed to obtain a new tenancy which started in March 2000 and that was with a different authority altogether.

Thanks for your help.

Tixy

I would start by phoning the local authority and saying this is the first you have heard about an possible debt and asking them to confirm what period the debt relates to.

If they try to push you to make a repayment arrangement I would say you just need to take some advice first and will call back in a couple of days.

antrobus

Tixy wrote: »

....The liability order would likely have been within 6years of the date the council tax was due,....

You're looking for section 34(3) of The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/613/regulation/34/made

Specifically, as regards liability order, "no application may be instituted in respect of a sum after the period of six years beginning with the day on which it became due". Therefore if (in this case) the liability order was granted on 14th November 2007, it must relate to a CT liability that 'became due' after the 14th November 2001, which is well after the OP supposedly left the address in 2000.

Tixy wrote: »

....which is why I wonder if it may be for a period after you left the property and were no longer liable to pay it.

It certainly appears to a relate to a period to which the OP might not expect they were liable to pay. Whether they were liable to pay would be a different question. Don't know the answer to that one.

graisbeck wrote: »

....Can someone please give me some advice on what to do?

Contact the LA in question, and find out exactly how this CT debt arose. It is possible to get liability orders set aside if they were issued in error, but otherwise the debt is payable.

graisbeck

I have been in contact with the authority and they say the period is 01/04/99 to 07/99.

Tixy

That seems odd and you probably need some specialist advice because on the face of it that liability order was obtained too late.

If the liability order was too late then you may be able to get it set aside and then the debt would likely be statute barred - which means you wouldn't need to pay it.

In the first instance I would try speaking to national debtline helpline for some advice (if they can't advise they may be able to suggest somewhere that can).

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/Pages/default.aspx

CIS

That seems odd and you probably need some specialist advice because on the face of it that liability order was obtained too late.

Not necessarily, the 6 years starts from when the amount becomes due, e.g. when a demand notice was issued. This could be more recent than the original period of liability.

Tixy

Is it from the date the original invoice was sent to the debtor? that was my interpretation. Or is a demand at a point later than that?

Is it that the invoice could have been sent much later (e.g. if the debtor had not informed them they were living there/liable to CT and so the bill hadn't been sent out at the normal point in March or because the debtors had not informed them they were no longer entitled to a discount etc)

graisbeck

Tixy wrote: »

That seems odd and you probably need some specialist advice because on the face of it that liability order was obtained too late.

If the liability order was too late then you may be able to get it set aside and then the debt would likely be statute barred - which means you wouldn't need to pay it.

In the first instance I would try speaking to national debtline helpline for some advice (if they can't advise they may be able to suggest somewhere that can).

Thank you for the link Tixy.

I rang the debtline and spoke to a really helpful advisor. He quoted Reg 34(3) Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992.
This stipulates that the liability order has to be made within 6 years of the council tax bills' due date, which is the beginning of April '99 in my case. Meaning that the liability order should of been made before April 2005, not 2007.

So now I have to send a letter off to them stating this, and ask them to apply to the courts to quash the liability order or I will escalate it to the local government ombudsman.

Any suggestions on how to construct this letter would be appreciated.

CIS

Is it from the date the original invoice was sent to the debtor? that was my interpretation. Or is a demand at a point later than that?

It would de from the last demand notice which set the amount - e.g. the latest demand notice is the one that any action was based on.

Meaning that the liability order should of been made before April 2005, not 2007.

It's very unlikely that the system order was issued out of time as the main systems used have safeguards which prevent this - in nearly 10 years I've never seen it (or heard of it happening) on the system I use and it's the most common system in use.

I rang the debtline and spoke to a really helpful advisor. He quoted Reg 34(3) Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992.

This means nothing without the context of when demand notices, reminders etc were issued. You need to know how the rest of council tax billing works.

Is it that the invoice could have been sent much later (e.g. if the debtor had not informed them they were living there/liable to CT and so the bill hadn't been sent out at the normal point in March or because the debtors had not informed them they were no longer entitled to a discount etc)

Anything that changes the account would generate a new demand notice (and assuming it wasn't already subject to a summons) start the action again from that date.

Before writing to the council asking them to quash the order I would suggest that your better off asking for a list in writing of all the action taken and the dates the notices were issued. The ombudsman would't deal with the case until you've gone right through the process with the council (even then the ombudsman can only make a suggestion to the council, it's not enforceable).