Council claim we have outstanding debt

84Reason

I moved houses recently with a change in council, our council tax is all paid off and when we left in September they ended up saying we were due a rebate which was nice. They are now coming back and saying they made an error and we owe them £300. This is obviously not something we wanted to hear and is not our fault at all. Is there any way we can contest this?

JGB1955

Are they right?  It would be odd to be in credit in September.....maybe in February, but not earlier in the year.

calcotti

JGB1955 said:

Are they right?  It would be odd to be in credit in September.....maybe in February, but not earlier in the year.

It is common to be in credit when moving out because payments are usually made over 10 months (from April to January) rather than 12 so each monthly payment in those 10 months is slightly more than the actual monthly liability.

84Reason

Hi all - they sent our refund and paid us in October saying they owed us money. They've since come back and said that we actually owe them money now after they paid us back. We don't have all of their money anymore.

molerat

How much did they refund you ?

Have you worked out if their second calculation is correct ? - not difficult, CT amount / 365 x number of days in property - what you already paid + refunded amount

If you do owe it you will have to work out a plan with them, they won't write it off and legally they don't have to.

84Reason

molerat said:

How much did they refund you ?

Have you worked out if their second calculation is correct ? - not difficult, CT amount / 365 x number of days in property - what you already paid + refunded amount

If you do owe it you will have to work out a plan with them, they won't write it off and legally they don't have to.

Just used this formula and we do owe them the money. Just frustrating we trusted their refund. I was hoping there was some technicality or legal standpoint we could get by on as it's just horrible to mess people about like this.

Will be double checking their maths next time.

Cheers

macman

No, they've got 6 years to claim it if there is an error. Just as you would if it was the other way around.