On ESA and DLA and at college, council are taking money off me for alleged CT arrears

mrxry

I started in August, got printout from college straight away saying when I started and took it to council same day and didnt hear back till about 3 weeks ago when I got a letter saying from council debt management saying I can set up a payment plan, I contacted different departments who just told me there was no record but main department never answered phones.

I had to wait a few days to get another copy of my proof and took it in and got receipt.

Today get a letter from DWP saying I am getting deductions from my ESA every week of about £3.80 (which doesnt make sense as the CT would be £30 a month if I paid it) for council tax!

What shall I do now to get this sorted since I have the receipts saying I took in my form twice and also they will have records of my call.

pmlindyloo

mrxry wrote: »

I started in August, got printout from college straight away saying when I started and took it to council same day and didnt hear back till about 3 weeks ago when I got a letter saying from council debt management saying I can set up a payment plan, I contacted different departments who just told me there was no record but main department never answered phones.

I had to wait a few days to get another copy of my proof and took it in and got receipt.

Today get a letter from DWP saying I am getting deductions from my ESA every week of about £3.80 (which doesnt make sense as the CT would be £30 a month if I paid it) for council tax!

What shall I do now to get this sorted since I have the receipts saying I took in my form twice and also they will have records of my call.

If they are deducting money from your benefits then they have already got a liability order from the court. They should have sent you letters detailing your council tax arrears before this happened.

What year do the arrears refer to? If you only became a student in August then you would still have been liable for council tax previously to that. Were you paying your council tax before you went to college?

CIS

Today get a letter from DWP saying I am getting deductions from my ESA every week of about £3.80 (which doesnt make sense as the CT would be £30 a month if I paid it) for council tax!

Council Tax deductions are £3.65 per week.

As for the rest , you need to clarify the other points mentioned above.

mrxry

pmlindyloo wrote: »

If they are deducting money from your benefits then they have already got a liability order from the court. They should have sent you letters detailing your council tax arrears before this happened.

What year do the arrears refer to? If you only became a student in August then you would still have been liable for council tax previously to that. Were you paying your council tax before you went to college?

I think its just a massive mess up from the council, I only moved here in June, but was given CT bill straight away and threats of taking it further then but phoned and said I was waiting for CT benefit assessment and they agreed to just ignore letters.

Then I got an updated bill at end of July about a week or so before I started course asking for first payment in August which I was late with as they only gave me a few days notice but I paid it.

I never got any letters after that till the debt mangement one who were friendly but referred me back to regular CT office who just took ages answering phone and said they had no proof.

Since then had no other letters.

And I forgot to say this is in Scotland.

epitome

It seems to me that you are saying you have agreed a CT payment plan For your ongoing Council Tax Bill..(i.e. not arrears) ..with the council but have not started making payments yet...? Is that right?

And you have CT deductions from your ESA at £3.65 a week.

If so, I would ask DWP Debt Management 0845/0345 850 0293 what is the total Arrears owed on the CT. = £xxx

Then Phone the council and ask what period the arrears total of £xxx covers, and ask them to explain to you if you will be paying off the same debt twice?

mrxry

Sorry, thats incorrect What I meant was I got a letter from the debt management team saying I owed money and I could ring them to arrange a payment plan, I rang to say I owed no arrears as I was at college and they said there was nothing on my file to do so.

Then a few weeks later i.e now I get a letter from DWP saying I am having money taken off for CT.

Part of the reason I also ask is that I assume they have added extra on for late payment, and I also wanted to know if I could make a formal complaint.