Is Council Tax liability Order enforcable after full payment?

adzesc

Hi Guys

Just a quick question. Can the council enforce a liability order after full payment is made?

May seem like a wierd question but the council has done just that by making an attachment to earnings on a liability order that has been paid in full.

Primrose82

When was it paid in full and have any payments been taken via the attachment of earnings order ?

adzesc

Payment was made in full in 2013!! Yes they have taken the rest of the balance from my wifes wages, it was £79.

This has been an ongoing argument with the council for almost a year. We also keep getting letters saying we have oustanding balances on previous years when we have settled the balances.

I've put in a subject access request so i can look through everything even though i keep all paper work from the council.

Primrose82

The sort answer is no the money shouldn't have been taken and obviously should be refunded - is there anyway that there is a second liability order that you're unaware of ?

HappyMJ

adzesc wrote: »

Payment was made in full in 2013!! Yes they have taken the rest of the balance from my wifes wages, it was £79.

This has been an ongoing argument with the council for almost a year. We also keep getting letters saying we have oustanding balances on previous years when we have settled the balances.

I've put in a subject access request so i can look through everything even though i keep all paper work from the council.

Just a year. You're doing well. I'm still arguing with them over a council tax bill from 2006. Just got it through the post again a few days ago.

Are they chasing the summons fees? They get added on if the council tax is paid very late even if you pay the bill before the court date.

adzesc

Sure its possible that im missing something and could just be a mistake on my part.

From conversations with the collections team at the council they pretty much told me that the money paid was distrubuted between the debt with the liabilty order and the current year (2013).

adzesc

Yes the summons fees were all paid aswell

The whole issue stems from several years ago when i got into a lot of debt and lost my income. Basically i just didn't pay council tax for a while, which is my responsibilty. As far as i know i was completely settled up with all my debt by the 2015/2016 year but they seem to keep throwing numbers at me and they keep changing.

For example the last debt i owed was £120 from 2014/2015 which i paid just before the 2015/2016 year, i received a court summons a couple of weeks ago for £139 for the year 2014/2015. I told the collections team that i want to dispute the debt and there answer was so what we're still taking you to court.

HappyMJ

adzesc wrote: »

Yes the summons fees were all paid aswell

The whole issue stems from several years ago when i got into a lot of debt and lost my income. Basically i just didn't pay council tax for a while, which is my responsibilty. As far as i know i was completely settled up with all my debt by the 2015/2016 year but they seem to keep throwing numbers at me and they keep changing.

For example the last debt i owed was £120 from 2014/2015 which i paid just before the 2015/2016 year, i received a court summons a couple of weeks ago for £139 for the year 2014/2015. I told the collections team that i want to dispute the debt and there answer was so what we're still taking you to court.

It sounds like you're having just as much hassle as me. I stopped paying anything at all for around 8 years due to the arguments we were having which were one sided to them.

You need to go to court, ignore the council representative who will try and make you admit everything before the list they have goes to the magistrate for stamping and allow the case to actually go to court. You then need to defend it.

fed_up_and_stressed

adzesc wrote: »

Sure its possible that im missing something and could just be a mistake on my part.

From conversations with the collections team at the council they pretty much told me that the money paid was distrubuted between the debt with the liabilty order and the current year (2013).

That'll be why then ! You need to make sure you have been paying enough to cover both current years liability PLUS arrears. Speak to them to set up a payment plan for the arrears plus one for current year.
then stick to the payments so that the system knows how to allocate the payments it receives.

the council may or may not realloacate the payments from the current years bill depending if you are behind on this years payment plan. E.g if you were meant to have paid £1000 for this years but missed some some your payments only total £921 including the payments towards the 2013 arrears I can't imagine they would reallocate the £79 to the 2013 bill to make you even further behind on the current year.

The easiest way to sort it is - pay the arrears of in a lump sum and then all future payments will be allocated to the current year and then in future ensure your payments are all made on time that way you won't be lumped with summons or liability order costs.

adzesc

fed_up_and_stressed wrote: »

That'll be why then ! You need to make sure you have been paying enough to cover both current years liability PLUS arrears. Speak to them to set up a payment plan for the arrears plus one for current year.
then stick to the payments so that the system knows how to allocate the payments it receives.

the council may or may not realloacate the payments from the current years bill depending if you are behind on this years payment plan. E.g if you were meant to have paid £1000 for this years but missed some some your payments only total £921 including the payments towards the 2013 arrears I can't imagine they would reallocate the £79 to the 2013 bill to make you even further behind on the current year.

The easiest way to sort it is - pay the arrears of in a lump sum and then all future payments will be allocated to the current year and then in future ensure your payments are all made on time that way you won't be lumped with summons or liability order costs.

This makes sense but what bothers me about this one particular debt is that it wasn't paid to the council but to an enforcement agent.

fed_up_and_stressed

adzesc wrote: »

This makes sense but what bothers me about this one particular debt is that it wasn't paid to the council but to an enforcement agent.

Sounds like you had debt collection fees on top then to pay - hence why you still have a balance