Feeling intimidated by council tax enforcement agent

Jude57

theartfullodger said:

Council tax debt is one of the very rare debts you can go to jail for.  Pay in full IMMEDIATELY (if you feel very sure you are in the right "under protest" - but I doubt it).  Then explore if you did or didn't owe it.

Pleased to hear of a council taking debts (thus their income..) seriously.... 

I worked in Council Tax recovery and can assure you that those debts are taken extremely seriously. I'd challenge you to find any local authority anywhere in the UK that doesn't pursue such debts vigorously. My previous employer, a relatively small local authority, had weekly Magistrates Court hearings for Liability Orders at which 2,000 LO's were sought, and the only week of the year there was no hearing was whatever week Christmas Day fell in. For context, there were then 68,000 properties in the area covered by that local authority. Committal hearings were additionally held once per month. The numbers I've quoted applied throughout my decade-plus employment in that role.

To the OP, as you're having no luck with first line contact at either the Council tor the bailiff, I'd recommend contacting the Councillor who represents the Ward where the former rental property was. You should be able to find their contact details on the Council's website. They should be able to get the matter expedited for you and act as intermediary with the Council Tax department. 

The bailiffs are quite correct that they'll only put a hold on recovery on instruction from their client so if you were told otherwise by the Council employee, you were wrongly advised. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a debtor can get a hold put on recovery on request because every debtor would do that if they could, whether they had a good reason or not. That's not how debt recovery works. That call will have been recorded so easily established either way and I'd expect the Councillor to be recommending further training for the staff member who gave you wrong advice. I'd be asking for specific details of what previous correspondence was issued regarding this debt, the dates it was issued and I'd be asking whether undeliverable mail was returned to the Council after the rental property was demolished. Undeliverable mail is returned to local authorities every day and upon receipt by the issuing department should trigger tracing protocols. I'd also recommend paying the outstanding amount, less fees, direct to the Council as quickly as possible. It shows goodwill on your part and gives you breathing space to deal with the fees over time if necessary.

TheJP

Jude57 said:

theartfullodger said:

Council tax debt is one of the very rare debts you can go to jail for.  Pay in full IMMEDIATELY (if you feel very sure you are in the right "under protest" - but I doubt it).  Then explore if you did or didn't owe it.

Pleased to hear of a council taking debts (thus their income..) seriously.... 

I worked in Council Tax recovery and can assure you that those debts are taken extremely seriously. I'd challenge you to find any local authority anywhere in the UK that doesn't pursue such debts vigorously. My previous employer, a relatively small local authority, had weekly Magistrates Court hearings for Liability Orders at which 2,000 LO's were sought, and the only week of the year there was no hearing was whatever week Christmas Day fell in. For context, there were then 68,000 properties in the area covered by that local authority. Committal hearings were additionally held once per month. The numbers I've quoted applied throughout my decade-plus employment in that role.

To the OP, as you're having no luck with first line contact at either the Council tor the bailiff, I'd recommend contacting the Councillor who represents the Ward where the former rental property was. You should be able to find their contact details on the Council's website. They should be able to get the matter expedited for you and act as intermediary with the Council Tax department. 

The bailiffs are quite correct that they'll only put a hold on recovery on instruction from their client so if you were told otherwise by the Council employee, you were wrongly advised. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a debtor can get a hold put on recovery on request because every debtor would do that if they could, whether they had a good reason or not. That's not how debt recovery works. That call will have been recorded so easily established either way and I'd expect the Councillor to be recommending further training for the staff member who gave you wrong advice. I'd be asking for specific details of what previous correspondence was issued regarding this debt, the dates it was issued and I'd be asking whether undeliverable mail was returned to the Council after the rental property was demolished. Undeliverable mail is returned to local authorities every day and upon receipt by the issuing department should trigger tracing protocols. I'd also recommend paying the outstanding amount, less fees, direct to the Council as quickly as possible. It shows goodwill on your part and gives you breathing space to deal with the fees over time if necessary.

Pretty sure there will be payment details on the letter from the enforcement agency the OP has now got hold off, but they are refusing to pay charges which are due to;

-Not paying in the first place
-Not giving a forwarding address

The OP needs to realise that they need to just pay the full amount to avoid further fees and possible court action.

Schwarzwald

LarryR said:

[....] I owe some council tax (2 months worth), plus some fees (£75) [...] and an extra £200 fee has now been added [...]

Can i make a very simple suggestion .... ?

maybe your feeling of intimidation goes away if you simply PAY your debts?

you say you didnt pay.
it's 4 years ago.
it's unlikely it will simply go away.
just pay it now and move on.
it's on you that you didnt check that you paid and you didnt leave any forwarding address.
the council and the debt collection agency had to put in all this work to collect what is due and you now refuse to pay some extra £270+ .... own your mistakes!

Jude57

TheJP said:

Jude57 said:

theartfullodger said:

Council tax debt is one of the very rare debts you can go to jail for.  Pay in full IMMEDIATELY (if you feel very sure you are in the right "under protest" - but I doubt it).  Then explore if you did or didn't owe it.

Pleased to hear of a council taking debts (thus their income..) seriously.... 

I worked in Council Tax recovery and can assure you that those debts are taken extremely seriously. I'd challenge you to find any local authority anywhere in the UK that doesn't pursue such debts vigorously. My previous employer, a relatively small local authority, had weekly Magistrates Court hearings for Liability Orders at which 2,000 LO's were sought, and the only week of the year there was no hearing was whatever week Christmas Day fell in. For context, there were then 68,000 properties in the area covered by that local authority. Committal hearings were additionally held once per month. The numbers I've quoted applied throughout my decade-plus employment in that role.

To the OP, as you're having no luck with first line contact at either the Council tor the bailiff, I'd recommend contacting the Councillor who represents the Ward where the former rental property was. You should be able to find their contact details on the Council's website. They should be able to get the matter expedited for you and act as intermediary with the Council Tax department. 

The bailiffs are quite correct that they'll only put a hold on recovery on instruction from their client so if you were told otherwise by the Council employee, you were wrongly advised. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a debtor can get a hold put on recovery on request because every debtor would do that if they could, whether they had a good reason or not. That's not how debt recovery works. That call will have been recorded so easily established either way and I'd expect the Councillor to be recommending further training for the staff member who gave you wrong advice. I'd be asking for specific details of what previous correspondence was issued regarding this debt, the dates it was issued and I'd be asking whether undeliverable mail was returned to the Council after the rental property was demolished. Undeliverable mail is returned to local authorities every day and upon receipt by the issuing department should trigger tracing protocols. I'd also recommend paying the outstanding amount, less fees, direct to the Council as quickly as possible. It shows goodwill on your part and gives you breathing space to deal with the fees over time if necessary.

Pretty sure there will be payment details on the letter from the enforcement agency the OP has now got hold off, but they are refusing to pay charges which are due to;

-Not paying in the first place
-Not giving a forwarding address

The OP needs to realise that they need to just pay the full amount to avoid further fees and possible court action.

For the debt to be passed to a bailiff, there must already have been a Liability Order granted by Magistrates. No further court action is necessary because the Liability Order grants wide recovery powers directly to the Council such as, but not limited to, attachment of earnings (amounts specified in relevant Statutory Instruments and not variable, entirely specific to Council Tax and unlike those granted by County Courts), attachment of certain benefits, charging orders, bankruptcy and imprisonment which even when served in full (no remission possible) does not clear the debt. Council Tax debt is a straightforward matter, and the court process is a strict liability decision - Magistrates cannot, until committal hearing stage, decide what a debtor pays, they can only decide whether the individual is liable or not liable, which the OP isn't arguing here. 

I don't disagree with what you say but now, as a 'gamekeeper turned poacher' I'm trying to help the OP avoid further fees by having the matter put on hold until the Council Tax department can fully investigate whether they took reasonable steps to ensure their correspondence about the matter was correctly addressed or whether they could have reasonably known that he had moved away and traced him to his current address. I'm sceptical that not one piece of post they've sent to a demolished house since 2020 has been returned marked 'undeliverable'. Should he have made it his business to contact the Council when he left that address? Of course but he didn't and here we are. 

TheJP

Jude57 said:

TheJP said:

Jude57 said:

theartfullodger said:

Council tax debt is one of the very rare debts you can go to jail for.  Pay in full IMMEDIATELY (if you feel very sure you are in the right "under protest" - but I doubt it).  Then explore if you did or didn't owe it.

Pleased to hear of a council taking debts (thus their income..) seriously.... 

I worked in Council Tax recovery and can assure you that those debts are taken extremely seriously. I'd challenge you to find any local authority anywhere in the UK that doesn't pursue such debts vigorously. My previous employer, a relatively small local authority, had weekly Magistrates Court hearings for Liability Orders at which 2,000 LO's were sought, and the only week of the year there was no hearing was whatever week Christmas Day fell in. For context, there were then 68,000 properties in the area covered by that local authority. Committal hearings were additionally held once per month. The numbers I've quoted applied throughout my decade-plus employment in that role.

To the OP, as you're having no luck with first line contact at either the Council tor the bailiff, I'd recommend contacting the Councillor who represents the Ward where the former rental property was. You should be able to find their contact details on the Council's website. They should be able to get the matter expedited for you and act as intermediary with the Council Tax department. 

The bailiffs are quite correct that they'll only put a hold on recovery on instruction from their client so if you were told otherwise by the Council employee, you were wrongly advised. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a debtor can get a hold put on recovery on request because every debtor would do that if they could, whether they had a good reason or not. That's not how debt recovery works. That call will have been recorded so easily established either way and I'd expect the Councillor to be recommending further training for the staff member who gave you wrong advice. I'd be asking for specific details of what previous correspondence was issued regarding this debt, the dates it was issued and I'd be asking whether undeliverable mail was returned to the Council after the rental property was demolished. Undeliverable mail is returned to local authorities every day and upon receipt by the issuing department should trigger tracing protocols. I'd also recommend paying the outstanding amount, less fees, direct to the Council as quickly as possible. It shows goodwill on your part and gives you breathing space to deal with the fees over time if necessary.

Pretty sure there will be payment details on the letter from the enforcement agency the OP has now got hold off, but they are refusing to pay charges which are due to;

-Not paying in the first place
-Not giving a forwarding address

The OP needs to realise that they need to just pay the full amount to avoid further fees and possible court action.

For the debt to be passed to a bailiff, there must already have been a Liability Order granted by Magistrates. No further court action is necessary because the Liability Order grants wide recovery powers directly to the Council such as, but not limited to, attachment of earnings (amounts specified in relevant Statutory Instruments and not variable, entirely specific to Council Tax and unlike those granted by County Courts), attachment of certain benefits, charging orders, bankruptcy and imprisonment which even when served in full (no remission possible) does not clear the debt. Council Tax debt is a straightforward matter, and the court process is a strict liability decision - Magistrates cannot, until committal hearing stage, decide what a debtor pays, they can only decide whether the individual is liable or not liable, which the OP isn't arguing here. 

I don't disagree with what you say but now, as a 'gamekeeper turned poacher' I'm trying to help the OP avoid further fees by having the matter put on hold until the Council Tax department can fully investigate whether they took reasonable steps to ensure their correspondence about the matter was correctly addressed or whether they could have reasonably known that he had moved away and traced him to his current address. I'm sceptical that not one piece of post they've sent to a demolished house since 2020 has been returned marked 'undeliverable'. Should he have made it his business to contact the Council when he left that address? Of course but he didn't and here we are. 

The liability which i believe the council will use is that the OP did not give a forwarding address knowingly that they did not pay CT. The OP can use covid as an excuse but its common sense to leave a forwarding address or even a mail direct service for 3-6 months. 

The OP can avoid all you have stated (very well put i add) by paying the bill and learning from this. 

eurobabe

You've also got look at from the point of view that the council will have to pay to recover debts such as yours, as well as the council tax you owe that all cones out if the pot of funds that he councils are already stretched on. Id pay up from a moral point of view and also that I doubt the council will let me off.more delay could warrant fees.

TheJP

I doubt the OP will return to this thread, they didn't get the answer they were hoping for. 

Herzlos

It's worth pointing out that the longer you ignore the bailiff / debt recovery company, the more charges will be added. You're *much* better off paying it now and then trying to argue if you feel it's not justified.