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Demand for outstanding Council Tax from 2007 out of nowhere
Comments
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Once a liability order is obtained they can chase the debt to your grave. The guidelines are if a council has not obtained a liability order and the council tax account is over 6 years old then the account should be written off except in case of fraud, mistakes and omission by the customer.
They can't persue if more than 6 years after the amount becomes due by way of applying for a liability order but they can still ask you to pay - they just can't enforce it.I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
There isn't an academic cut off date for entitlement to a student exemption for council tax purposes - providing you're on a qualifying course of education.
Well this is another strange thing, because in order to qualify for a student exemption back in '07 I would have had to provide a certificate from my university, and if there was any period of time the exemption certificate didn't cover then surely the council would have asked me to pay something then.0 -
They can't persue if more than 6 years after the amount becomes due by way of applying for a liability order but they can still ask you to pay - they just can't enforce it.
They may as well write the council tax off as I said. If they can't enforce payment then the customer can just say no to any request for payment even if the customer has plenty of income and assets as it can never be enforced.:footie:
Regular savers earn 6% interest (HSBC, First Direct, M&S) Loans cost 2.9% per year (Nationwide) = FREE money. 0 -
They may as well write the council tax off as I said. If they can't enforce payment then the customer can just say no to any request for payment even if the customer has plenty of income and assets as it can never be enforced.
I think you're right, but in my case I don't think it's a factor because they were apparently granted a liability order at the Magistrates Court, which I presume they only hand out if the debt is less than 6 years old.0 -
Well this is another strange thing, because in order to qualify for a student exemption back in '07 I would have had to provide a certificate from my university, and if there was any period of time the exemption certificate didn't cover then surely the council would have asked me to pay something then.
Council's will sometime verify the information direct with the educational establishment - the university may well have provided a list to the council at the time. If it's anything like the two universities I deal with the lists are never complete and names seem to drop on and off the lists at random.
For it to have got to a liability order the council must have issued a demand notice, at least one reminder and a court summons. These don't have to have been issued back on 2007, the could have been issued later if the council have altered their records retrospectively.I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
I think you're right, but in my case I don't think it's a factor because they were apparently granted a liability order at the Magistrates Court, which I presume they only hand out if the debt is less than 6 years old.
Moot point in this case but the liability order has to be obtained within 6 years of the amount becoming due - the amount only becomes due when a demand notice is issued for the amount, this could be any point after the original council tax is due (and sometimes years later if new information comes to light).I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
For it to have got to a liability order the council must have issued a demand notice, at least one reminder and a court summons.
See this is what really gets me. How can they have gone through all of that and not have thought to look at their records to see if they've got me at a new address?
It sounds like they kept just sending letters to that old address even though, as they've admitted, they kept getting letters back marked 'gone away'. The letter also says they only got my current address recently through a third party, even though I've received several letters from them (relating to other matters) in the past few years!
I really hope this doesn't adversely affect me, financially or otherwise, beyond paying the original amount owed (if there is any). Talk of summonses and bailiffs is pretty worrying.0 -
The council are only required to issue notifications to the last known address held for a person but if they were getting them back as gone away I would raise this. Personally I will withdraw action if mail has come back as gone away and re-issue it once an address is found.
Although you may have been at another address in the same council's area it's not always possible to say that 'Mr Smith' at 123 No Place is the same as 'Mr Smith' at 234 Somewhere Road. It depends on what the council have been told and when.I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
Well, well, well... I just got confirmation through from my old uni which states definitely that there was no gap whatsoever between the courses I did (one ended 30 Sep, the next started 1 Oct), which is what I suspected.
So that means that the incompetents at Birmingham City Council not only failed to notify me of an outstanding debt for 8 years despite having a current address for me the whole time, going as far as getting a summons from the Magistrates Court, but the 'debt' was non-existent the whole time. Bloody idiots.0
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