DRO was made but still received Deductions from Earnings!

Roxy1992

Hello,
This is some kind of a horrible nightmare at the moment cause the main reason I made DRO was to exactly avoid situation like that from happening. I was approved DRO in June 2017 and from October 2017 my employer started to deduct money from my wages for council tax which was of course included in my DRO. Employer said that they received court order to deduct money, The problem is i didnt receive the copy of a document myself yet, don't know why.
What can I do to stop those payments being deducted from my wages cause I really can't afford to loose them. I am already fed up with this situation and it seems like the problem is not resolved even after DRO. Where do the money go which they deduct? Can I recover them somehow ? And yet where should I hit first and try to explain the whole thing?

fatbelly

OK, the message may not have got through to the council.

Send them a copy of your DEBTNOT - the letter from the dro team listing your creditors. Highlight the council tax debt (the DEBTNOT for some reason does not include reference numbers) and ask them to

1. cancel the aoe
2. refund all monies collected since x June 2017

If the council tax wasn't included, or if the collection is against present year council tax where the right to pay instalments had not been lost at the date of the DRO, then the argument fails unfortunately.

CIS

As above - you need to make the council aware of the DRO and ask then what period the council tax charge is for. The employer can only act under the instruction of the council.

The DRO only covers the council tax up to the point is goes through, it doesn't cover the entire year's council tax charge. It would also not cover any retrospective adjustments which were made since the DRO and which have lead to backdated monies becoming due.

fatbelly

CIS - it does cover the whole present year if the right to pay in instalments has been lost.

'If instalment payments are in arrears and the debtor has defaulted in respect of a reminder notice or a final notice this will have resulted in the whole of the remaining liability for the year becoming due and payable. If so, the whole of the amount is due and payable and is a qualifying debt whether or not the council has obtained a liability order.'

On your last point, it's always worth an argument if the council has made 'retrospective adjustments' that could or should have been made earlier. The DRO Unit may also be asked for an opinion.

What I'm guessing has happened here though is that the message has not got through. The DRO unit just send an email to one council address without giving them any reference or any indication whether the debt is council tax, benefit overpayment, sundry debt, rent arrears or penalty charge notice! It causes problems all the time, and the intermediary (who knows what each debt it) is not sent any definitive document that proves what is in the DRO. I've requested this and been told 'no' - they will only send this (and will send multiple copies if necessary) to the debtor and 'creditor'

CIS

CIS - it does cover the whole present year if the right to pay in instalments has been lost.

Yes, of course, my error on that point. The apportionment is, of course, where the right to payments hasn't yet been lost.

On your last point, it's always worth an argument if the council has made 'retrospective adjustments' that could or should have been made earlier. The DRO Unit may also be asked for an opinion.

On that point I think it would be a difficult argument - the council tax charge cannot be due until a demand notice is issued. If this is done retrospectively then the monies were never due until after the DRO and so wouldn't be a debt at the time. It's an argument that needs to be fully tested though as it would likely have a huge knock on effects for other aspects of council tax.

As an aside - issuing a late notice can sometimes be challenged but case law on the matter put the onus back on to the debtor to show they had been unfairly prejudiced by it rather than it just simply being a case of a council getting information retrospectively and acting on it.

What I'm guessing has happened here though is that the message has not got through.

I'd suspect this was the case as well.