council tax

sammahootexpress

please help 
iv lived in a bedsit nearly 13 years and never paid council tax never had a letter till last year which wanted to know who lived in property 7 months past then got letter from council valuation putting in band b 5 weeks ago received a letter saying council tax in areas please pay 3000 sent email back twice and got a reply last weekend saying taking to court over non payment , turns out I never received a letter back in April for new year and 11 years back dated , been saving the last years tax but can't afford the last 11 years , any way the council  will listen to reason of trying to pay this large sum back 
thanks

lincroft1710

sammahootexpress said:

please help 
iv lived in a bedsit nearly 13 years and never paid council tax never had a letter till last year which wanted to know who lived in property 7 months past then got letter from council valuation putting in band b 5 weeks ago received a letter saying council tax in areas please pay 3000 sent email back twice and got a reply last weekend saying taking to court over non payment , turns out I never received a letter back in April for new year and 11 years back dated , been saving the last years tax but can't afford the last 11 years , any way the council  will listen to reason of trying to pay this large sum back 
thanks

11 years backdated on Band B would be considerably more than £3000, probably nearer £30,000. All you can do is patiently and politely explain the problem and see if they can spread the payments. You can also contact the Valuation Office Agency (who deal with CT banding) and see if you can get the band reduced to Band A. It won't halve the bill but could knock around 15% off.
..

maisie_cat

When you say bedsit, do you mean a house of multiple occupation?
I'm sure that affects who is responsible for the council tax

sammahootexpress

When you say bedsit, do you mean a house of multiple occupation?
I'm sure that affects who is responsible for the council tax

bedsit 1 person in place , for some reason the place has never been on the council records till they sent letter asking who lived there last year and now iv got payments from 2008 till today to pay 

CIS

What happened in this case is that the council and the VOA have only just become aware that the property existed and so have corrected their records, it's a very common event. The VOA have made the decision that the bedsit is a property in it's own right. Either by way of 3 of the LGFA 1992 or Article 3 of the chargeable dwellings order.

They don't have to allow any time to pay the arrears. Whether or not they do so is the council's discretion.

There may be grounds for a discount to be applied and/or a s13A (1)(c) discount.