Paying Council Tax: Standing Orders vs. Direct Debits

anon_private

I am wondering whether direct debit is better that standing orders for paying council tax.

It appears that direct debit has more protections. But on cancellation, the bank and council will need to be told.

With standing orders only the bank needs to be told

Katiehound

One of the reasons for using DDs for council tax is to fulfil conditions for incentives that available with certain bank accounts where 2 monthly DDs are required to be paid out.
Council tax fulfils this neatly as you can opt for 12 installments rather than 10

colsten

anon_private wrote: »

But on cancellation, the bank and council will need to be told.

It is sufficient to cancel the DD with your bank / in your online banking. Next time the payee tries to take a payment, they will be told by the bank if the DD has been cancelled. If you feel courteous, you can also tell the payee - just like you'd do if you stopped an SO.

One of the benefits of paying your council tax by DD isn't immediately obvious: it will be cheaper for the council to collect the tax by DD. Thereby contributing to keeping your council tax lower.

If you have a Santander 123 or a Natwest Rewards account, you also get cashback if you pay by DD.

agrinnall

colsten wrote: »

It is sufficient to cancel the DD with your bank / in your online banking. Next time the payee tries to take a payment, they will be told by the bank if the DD has been cancelled. If you feel courteous, you can also tell the payee - just like you'd do if you stopped an SO.

In both cases I think the LA would need to be informed that CT is no longer due (for whatever reason) otherwise cancelling either DD or SO could well lead to a summons for non-payment.

colsten

agrinnall wrote: »

In both cases I think the LA would need to be informed that CT is no longer due (for whatever reason) otherwise cancelling either DD or SO could well lead to a summons for non-payment.

Could be tricky for a summons to be served on someone who's moved to a different LA. I agree, though, that it would be courteous to tell the LA why you stopped the payment.

CIS

DD's are easier to manage - you don't need to make any adjustments yourself if your council tax changes, the DD will be re-calculated automatically. SO's cause no end of trouble with under-payments.

Could be tricky for a summons to be served on someone who's moved to a different LA. I agree, though, that it would be courteous to tell the LA why you stopped the payment.

Not really - the process is relatively easy.

HappyMJ

anon_private wrote: »

I am wondering whether direct debit is better that standing orders for paying council tax.

It appears that direct debit has more protections. But on cancellation, the bank and council will need to be told.

With standing orders only the bank needs to be told

I prefer to pay by credit card.

Second option for me would be by standing order.

I would pay by direct debit if the supplier offered a good discount for doing so. The council does not so I pay by credit card.

colsten

CIS wrote: »

Not really - the process is relatively easy.

How do you write to someone whose address you don't know?

colsten

HappyMJ wrote: »

I prefer to pay by credit card.

Second option for me would be by standing order.

I would pay by direct debit if the supplier offered a good discount for doing so. The council does not so I pay by credit card.

Sounds as if your council could make significant savings if they don't charge for the use of credit cards

ChiefGrasscutter

colsten wrote: »

It is sufficient to cancel the DD with your bank / in your online banking. Next time the payee tries to take a payment, they will be told by the bank if the DD has been cancelled. If you feel courteous, you can also tell the payee - just like you'd do if you stopped an SO.

If you still have an outstanding contract in force with a payee and you unilaterally cancel the DD/SO without also telling the payee that you have stopped the most likely end result is that you will end up in court with possibly a CCJ against you and your credit record affected.
Cancelling the DD does not cancel the contract you have with the payee. You just end up with a missed payment notice.
In many cases of a contract there may well be a cancellation fee to pay

In fact with many payees just cancelling the DD/SO and saying nowt else is the very last thing you should do and the advise not to do it is written on many forums: particularly phone/ISP/Mobile phone ones.

How many times on these boards do we hear the tale of "I wanted to stop my gym membership so I simply cancelled the monthly DD and now they are taking me to court for non payment".

agrinnall

colsten wrote: »

How do you write to someone whose address you don't know?

I'm not sure that it's wise to argue about this with someone whose job is CT recovery! I'm pretty confident that CIS will know many ways in which to issue proceedings against people who have moved without notifying their LA, but he may not wish to share all of them (otherwise he'll have to kill us all - and we know he can find our addresses ).