Council Tax Liability Order

JohnnyB70

I moved into my home in Newcastle last March, having previously rented it out. I was liable for the tax from mid-March, so waited to get a bill from to pay.

When I didn'yt get anything my around July I went online and filled in a form letting them know that I had moved in.

My former tenants were a professional couple who moved back to the US suddenly when he got a new job offer. I decided that it was time to use the house myself once they left. I've not had any suggestion that they ever fell behind on their own bill.

I received a bill later in the summer with no mention of arrears, so set up a direct debit for that and didn't do anything further.

I've now received a letter from a debt collection agency telling me that a liability order was granted against me for non-payment of the bill from March - Sep 2021. It lists the tax that I need to pay and also over £400 of charges, for a visit to an address that is completely uinrelated to the propererty, one in London where I lived a couple of years ago. This letter was sent to that same address, the tenants who live there now forwarded it to me.

I paid the tax straight away, directly to the council, but don't understand how a liability order can be granted without anything being sent to me at the property that the tax was for, and where I was living throughout the time that it was accruing.

They won't give me a breakdown of how they get to the amount, and I was wondering whether I have any grounds to have the order set-aside and their fees waived, and if so how to go about it.

Had I get any bill from the council I'd have paid straight away, I really can't work out what's gone wrong or how it's got to the stage of bing charded so much money.

JGB1955

If you weren't living there from March to Sept 2021, why have you paid it?  Surely you should start by asking for a SAR?

JohnnyB70

JGB1955 said:

If you weren't living there from March to Sept 2021, why have you paid it?  Surely you should start by asking for a SAR?

I was, I moved in in March, so was liable, and had told the council I was there. I really don’t want to lay enforcement fees given no-one ever billed me, or followed up before getting the liability order.