Affordability and Newlyn - Council tax issue

[Deleted User]

Morning all

Tricky one to explain here, but I was just wondering if Newlyn and similar firms have to follow a recognised standard in respect of affordability for repayments.

I've been dealing with Newlyn for a council tax debt for a while now and it's a decent amount i pay weekly as i want to knock it off asap, but with all the energy rises etc, i think i'll need to tweak it down a bit for a while.  I know i need to have a chat with them and i'm sure they will be alright but i was just wondering in advance if they have to follow any kinda affordability standard.  They weren't interested in a breakdown of my outgoings etc before we setup this current agreement.   It's a council tax issue and there is no bailiff involved anymore (due to his stupidity and making a threat that ended up with the police getting involved ).  

Thanks

sourcrates

If you need to reduce your payments, then do so.

The cost of living crisis is hitting most people quite hard, you don`t need to "have a chat" with them, just tell them what you intend to do, that due to rising costs you must lower your monthly payment to them, and leave it at that.

Don`t go looking for their approval here, you do what you need to do, and they will just have to accept it won`t they.

EssexHebridean

sourcrates said:

If you need to reduce your payments, then do so.

The cost of living crisis is hitting most people quite hard, you don`t need to "have a chat" with them, just tell them what you intend to do, that due to rising costs you must lower your monthly payment to them, and leave it at that.

Don`t go looking for their approval here, you do what you need to do, and they will just have to accept it won`t they.

Just checking that this definitely applies when it’s Council Tax, with that being a priority debt? 

OP - might it be of help to do a fresh SOA and post that into here so we can see if we can identify any savings in your budget that you might have missed which might help you to get the debt gone quicker?

fatbelly

The answer to the question is that there are guidelines they have to follow but no fixed standard regarding payment that you are looking for.

The basic rule is that they can't have what you haven't got, so if you need to reduce the payment, bearing in mind that this is a lump sum of council tax arrears that has already been through magistrates court (with fees added) to a bailiff  (with fees added)
then that's what you do.

There is nowhere else for them to go with this - they have already attended with a view to taking control of your assets. Sounds like that didn't go too well.

The council could consider you (England only) for committal to prison but as you are guilty of neither 'wilful refusal nor culpable neglect'  they wouldn't get far at court