Council won’t stop charging me after move

shefmarkh

Hello

i notified my council on 16 November that I was selling my house on 25th and moving out of area. Got auto email reply acknowledging this. The problem is they have not actioned it. On dec 7 they took payment as usual and my online account shows payments due to end of year as usual.

I phoned the council 3 times and each time the automated system hung up on me whilst on hold. Tried emailing them again and got auto reply stating not to email them about such topics.

also tried emailing my former local councillor 3 days ago and got no reply.

Any idea what I should do now? Just cancel the direct debit and wait to argue in court I don’t live there if they take it that far?

Thanks

Mark

Jonboy_1984

What I would do is:

Count the days from the start of the council tax period (Likely April 5th but your bill will say) to the 25the of November.

Divide the total bill by 365 and times by the number of days to see how how much liability is yours.

Add up your payments to date for this year and see if you are in credit or debt for the liability paid so far.

If you are in credit cancel the direct debit as you have the auto acknowledgment email to prove you have notified them.

If you are in debt leave the direct debit to run until it’s covered or they contact you.


I moved this year from one district to an adjoining one that share services for council tax collection. The area we were leaving sorted themselves out in 10 days. The one we moved to took over 3 months…

p00hsticks

I was in a similar position (although it wasn't me moving - it was the house of a deceased relative I'm executor for).

I understood  that the completion and my notification the same day was probably too late in the month for them to stop the DD at the beginning of the next month, but was surprised when the council continued to take it the following month as well.

When I phoned them I was told it was because I hadn't provided details of the new owner. This doesn't really make sense to me - there must be plenty of valid circumstances where people don't know the details of who now owns or is living in a property they've moved out of , and in my case I knew the purchaser wasn't going to be the one actually living in it - but I could give the name and address of the purchaser from the estate agents memorandum of sale.

A few days later (around a month ago now) I got sent a notification that the account had now been closed, but it shows a credit balance which hasn't been paid and it's not clear when and how it will be, so I'm going to have to phone them  again in the next few days . 

gbhxu

Has the house been sold yet?

If it's up for sale but empty you're still liable for the Council Tax.

Each council has their own policy when it come to empty houses and the amount of CT they charge.