Council Tax Dispute

CIS

CIS, please could you advise the most appropriate way to formally challenge the period of liability on the Council Tax side. Is this done through a Valuation Tribunal? The only other option I can see is to not pay the next instalment (due tomorrow) and challenge the summons in the magistrates court, but obviously we don't really want to do this. Thanks for your help.

Liability has to be properly challenged via the council and then the valuation tribunal - the magistrates have no jurisdiction in a liability dispute and so failing to pay is not going to help the matter.

Confuseddotcom101

Thank you CIS.



I had just accessed the Valuation Tribunal website to remind myself of the Tribunal's comments in my banding decision, and I see that you can also appeal liability issues there, which would appear to be the way forward.


As we have corresponded with the council so far by email, with no success, would "properly challenged" involve a formal letter do you think? I have already asked for the person to whom to complain, but no reply. I will try and find out further information from their website if possible. I would always prefer to write to a specific person with authority, but it may be the case that this is not appropriate here.



As regards emotion, yes I agree with you Lincroft1710 that it is totally necessary going forward for me to try and control this. However, we are not all able to switch our emotions on and off, and as this highly stressful matter is already coinciding with me trying to sort out my Dad's estate, it's not a great time. But I thank you both for reading my admittedly long posts and taking the time and trouble to respond.


The President of the VT in my banding case held that as a public officer dispensing a statutory duty the Listing Officer is also obliged to have regard to the ordinary principles of public law and that there was at least one point of law (in 2015) contained in the Council Tax legislation which would have merited "consideration in the interests of council tax payers and those who administer the system". From my extremely swift perusal of some of the Council Tax legislation yesterday I would say that there are still a number of points of law which still require consideration for this purpose. But only time will tell if the VT will agree with me on this occasion. Hopefully the Council will see sense and it will not get that far.

Confuseddotcom101

P.S. CIS - thanks for the link. I've only just clicked on it.

lincroft1710

Confuseddotcom101 wrote: »

The President of the VT in my banding case held that as a public officer dispensing a statutory duty the Listing Officer is also obliged to have regard to the ordinary principles of public law and that there was at least one point of law (in 2015) contained in the Council Tax legislation which would have merited "consideration in the interests of council tax payers and those who administer the system". From my extremely swift perusal of some of the Council Tax legislation yesterday I would say that there are still a number of points of law which still require consideration for this purpose. But only time will tell if the VT will agree with me on this occasion. Hopefully the Council will see sense and it will not get that far.

Could you explain in more detail please?