Council claims CRA report shows extra people at my address

firefly225

So since March this year, my local council have accused me of fraudulently claiming a single person discount on my council tax.  Despite disputing this and inviting them to setup surveillance on my house to verify for themselves, they are saying there are 3 additional adults with a financial association to my address.

I use the MSE Credit Club to regularly check my Experian credit report and today I created a Credit Karma account to check with TransUnion (the CRA that my council uses).  Neither show any financial associations to other people at my address or otherwise.

My questions are:

• Can another person be registered at the same address as me but I wouldn't see it on my report due to having no direct financial connection to them? 
• How can I get something removed/changed by the CRAs when I can't even see it's there (but assume it is as that's what the council tells me is there!)

There are some new build houses at the end of my road, so I "think" that one (or more?) of these very new addresses has somehow become associated with mine.  What I don't know how to do is un-associate it or how I find out if someone is fraudulently using my address.  Is it worth contacting any of the CRAs to get the information removed: I can provide them with the names of the three people the council tells me are currently living with me but with data protection, etc, etc I imagine the CRA will end up being unable to either confirm or deny anything anyway? Just wondering if it's worth the effort or if I should just continue banging my head against a brick wall.....

Thanks in advance!

[Deleted User]

It is possible someone is using your address for themselves by mistake or otherwise which has created a financial association with the address but this is separate to your personal finances. I don't really know what to suggest beyond filing an action fraud case but of course if you have never had any post etc I don't see what else you can do.

CIS

firefly225 said:

So since March this year, my local council have accused me of fraudulently claiming a single person discount on my council tax.  Despite disputing this and inviting them to setup surveillance on my house to verify for themselves, they are saying there are 3 additional adults with a financial association to my address.

I use the MSE Credit Club to regularly check my Experian credit report and today I created a Credit Karma account to check with TransUnion (the CRA that my council uses).  Neither show any financial associations to other people at my address or otherwise.

My questions are:

• Can another person be registered at the same address as me but I wouldn't see it on my report due to having no direct financial connection to them? 
• How can I get something removed/changed by the CRAs when I can't even see it's there (but assume it is as that's what the council tells me is there!)

There are some new build houses at the end of my road, so I "think" that one (or more?) of these very new addresses has somehow become associated with mine.  What I don't know how to do is un-associate it or how I find out if someone is fraudulently using my address.  Is it worth contacting any of the CRAs to get the information removed: I can provide them with the names of the three people the council tells me are currently living with me but with data protection, etc, etc I imagine the CRA will end up being unable to either confirm or deny anything anyway? Just wondering if it's worth the effort or if I should just continue banging my head against a brick wall.....

Thanks in advance!

It's certainly possible that something has linked against your address through no fault of your own.

I've dealt with many council tax disputes (as it is my day job) but I've not quite seen one like this - keep in mind that data matching exercises often go beyond that of just the CRAs - it depends what matching the council have used.

People giving wrong addresses, especially on new houses, is quite common though and a lot of people don't seem to know what address they actually live at. I've seen plenty of that over the years and it's caused some major council tax issues.

ilikewatch2

The most common issue I've encountered with newbuilds is that people use the plot number rather than the house number - the last street I lived on had 60 houses (numbered 1-60), and I lived at number 19. When 20 additional houses were built at the end of the street these were initially numbered "plot 1 - plot 20", before being allocated their official house numbers (numbers 61-80) some time after they had been sold and the new residents had moved in.
I had issues for years because of this, not least because the new residents of "number 79" had applied for a mortgage for "plot 19" and this then became linked to "number 19" which I owned.

notional

It could be worth taking it up with the post office, I think they do some registration process of the new homes. It could also be worth going down and knocking on the doors of the likely houses and saying something vague and friendly like our mail is getting mixed up.

firefly225

CIS said:

It's certainly possible that something has linked against your address through no fault of your own.

I've dealt with many council tax disputes (as it is my day job) but I've not quite seen one like this - keep in mind that data matching exercises often go beyond that of just the CRAs - it depends what matching the council have used.

People giving wrong addresses, especially on new houses, is quite common though and a lot of people don't seem to know what address they actually live at. I've seen plenty of that over the years and it's caused some major council tax issues.

Thanks for your response.  You would think that the council could pick up those three names against another council tax reference or the electoral roll?  I've filled out their form again to confirm I am the sole resident but I won't hold my breath!

firefly225

ilikewatch2 said:

The most common issue I've encountered with newbuilds is that people use the plot number rather than the house number - the last street I lived on had 60 houses (numbered 1-60), and I lived at number 19. When 20 additional houses were built at the end of the street these were initially numbered "plot 1 - plot 20", before being allocated their official house numbers (numbers 61-80) some time after they had been sold and the new residents had moved in.
I had issues for years because of this, not least because the new residents of "number 79" had applied for a mortgage for "plot 19" and this then became linked to "number 19" which I owned.

Sorry to hear about the issues you had - I seriously hope this doesn't drag on for years though!! Thanks for your response.

firefly225

notional said:

It could be worth taking it up with the post office, I think they do some registration process of the new homes. It could also be worth going down and knocking on the doors of the likely houses and saying something vague and friendly like our mail is getting mixed up.

Thanks for your response - I've not had any direct mail from any of the four new streets just up from me, only multiple McDonalds, takeaway deliveries and Amazon parcels where I've had to redirect the drivers to head around the corner as their sat navs only ever brought them as far as my road. I may yet resort to wandering down to knock on doors, but not sure how receptive people would be given it seems there's not much I can do so not sure what they can do, short of providing me with their council tax reference number to show they live near me just not with me!

CIS

ilikewatch2 said:

The most common issue I've encountered with newbuilds is that people use the plot number rather than the house number - the last street I lived on had 60 houses (numbered 1-60), and I lived at number 19. When 20 additional houses were built at the end of the street these were initially numbered "plot 1 - plot 20", before being allocated their official house numbers (numbers 61-80) some time after they had been sold and the new residents had moved in.
I had issues for years because of this, not least because the new residents of "number 79" had applied for a mortgage for "plot 19" and this then became linked to "number 19" which I owned.

I've seen that happen a lot - even more so where, for some reason, the plot numbers were all changed during the development and after some had been sold - that caused chaos.

CIS

firefly225 said:

CIS said:

It's certainly possible that something has linked against your address through no fault of your own.

I've dealt with many council tax disputes (as it is my day job) but I've not quite seen one like this - keep in mind that data matching exercises often go beyond that of just the CRAs - it depends what matching the council have used.

People giving wrong addresses, especially on new houses, is quite common though and a lot of people don't seem to know what address they actually live at. I've seen plenty of that over the years and it's caused some major council tax issues.

Thanks for your response.  You would think that the council could pick up those three names against another council tax reference or the electoral roll?  I've filled out their form again to confirm I am the sole resident but I won't hold my breath!

They'll probably look further once they get your response.