City Council Cancelled My Council Tax Direct Debit

MrMaddison

I found out today that my City Council cancelled my direct debit for some reason.

A bit of background. Without going into too much detail, I found out 3 months ago that we were in major arrears with our council tax. My partner was supposed to be covering it, wasn't, and keeping it from me. I found letters and we got it sorted by entering an AVI to pay off the arrears and set up the current council tax to come out my bank account by direct debit on the 1st of every month.

May's payment came out fine, just before the AVI was finalised. But last night I noticed that this month's payment hadn't gone out, checked my direct debits on my banking app and the status for the council tax one was "cancelled". No reason why, money was in there.

This morning (Saturday) I visited my bank thinking they had cancelled it to find out why. The lady I saw sais that was strange and tried to reinstate the direct debit, but it came up with a message saying "cancelled by originator", or something like that. The originator being the city council.

I paid this month's payment by automated phone service as soon as I got home. As it's Saturday I can't speak to the council till Monday.

Does anyone have any idea why they would cancel the payment? The only thing I can think of is an attempt to upset our IVA so they can demand immediate payment of the arrears again, or am I just being paranoid?

anselld

Probably just incompetence.
Why not set up a standing order, then you remain in control.

MrMaddison

I think I probably will.
It just seems shady to me as part of our IVA agreement was that we don't default on our current council tax again.
Our representative who set up the IVA also told us that they were THE most difficult creditor she's ever dealt with.

CIS

I would ask the council and see what they say.



The reason I would ask is that in my dept would we would get weekly lists of cancelled council tax direct debits which gave the reason for the cancellation.



We would get people calling up asking why we'd cancelled it as the bank had told them we'd done it. The problem with that was that the cancellation originated from the bank and their own paperwork confirmed it... Some banks were worse than others.

MrMaddison

It will be interesting to hear what the council say.
By the looks of it it was definitely them that cancelled it as the lady in the bank was unable to reinstate it as it was "cancelled by Originator". Saw it myself on the screen

Apodemus

I wouldn’t rush into assuming some conspiracy by the Council, probably just a glitch in either the bank’s or the Council’s system, or the way the two talk to each other.

I have had similar problem with payments to my mobile phone provider - bank swears blind that company has cancelled the Direct debit, company swears blind that bank has cancelled it. It’s happened twice now and neither side can understand it. Just reinstate the payment and move on.

MrMaddison

Ok so there's no conspiracy.
Turns out the current council tax up until next year is covered by the IVA payments.

D_M_E

Current year's tax is covered by the IVA - does this mean you will get a refund of the May payment which it would appear is in addition to the IVA payments?