Ctax summons

salimnina

Hi all,
I got a summons for a £25  that goes back to 22-23 year. It is a bill I tried to pay online but I could not, I informed them of this, but they kept sending couple of reminders at the time then they stopped.

Last month, because I complained about my entitlements and my benefit that were not assessed properly when I was unemployed, then the council reviewed my council tax from 2022-23, but they never brought this £25 outstanding fee and decided to worked out my discount entitlements which I settled.

Last week, without any reminders about any possible court action they sent me summons for £25 that I want to appeal as £80 admin fee was added to bring my bill to £105.

I contacted the council without response. 

Any advise on what ground. I am a teacher and I do not want this to affect my professionally career.

powerful_Rogue

salimnina said:

Hi all,
I got a summons for a £25  that goes back to 22-23 year. It is a bill I tried to pay online but I could not, I informed them of this, but they kept sending couple of reminders at the time then they stopped.

Last month, because I complained about my entitlements and my benefit that were not assessed properly when I was unemployed, then the council reviewed my council tax from 2022-23, but they never brought this £25 outstanding fee and decided to worked out my discount entitlements which I settled.

Last week, without any reminders about any possible court action they sent me summons for £25 that I want to appeal as £80 admin fee was added to bring my bill to £105.

I contacted the council without response. 

Any advise on what ground. I am a teacher and I do not want this to affect my professionally career.

Never ignore anything relating to council tax.

When you say you contacted them without response, how did you contact them?

Phone them up and see if they will still accept payment. The £80 will be the fee to issue the summons and start court action.

salimnina

I contacted them by email at least twice, with proof of payment errors.

I need advice on how to appeal, it is not right what they are doing

Marcon

salimnina said:

I contacted them by email at least twice, with proof of payment errors.

I need advice on how to appeal, it is not right what they are doing

If you look on the website for your local council it should give you the necessary information on how to make a complaint.

Brie

So you are saying that you shouldn't have to pay the £25?  Can you tell us why?

powerful_Rogue

salimnina said:

I contacted them by email at least twice, with proof of payment errors.

I need advice on how to appeal, it is not right what they are doing

Do you still have proof that you emailed them? Really should have phoned them up at the time to sort out.

The £25 you owe, you admit that. The £85 is the court fee. The only kind of 'appeal' is to go to court, but if you owe the money, you will lose.

Robbie64

You need to try and get the £80 court fee removed, the £25 will still be owing. Rather than emailing the council I would suggest phoning them and offering to pay immediately. If you can do this before the court date the council might waive the £80. Whilst email should be a quick way of resolving a query, it's not always the case and in some instances, such as your situation, it's better to phone and speak to someone.

salimnina

I emailed them, with proof of errors. Phoning will leave no evidence. 
So the advice is to pay the outstanding fee and wait ? Or shall I appeal altogether.

Also worth mentioning, is that they reviewed my account from 2022, so I expected they covered it all, in other words I can still argue that in court.

My concern is not the £25.

peteuk

salimnina said:

I contacted them by email at least twice, with proof of payment errors.

I need advice on how to appeal, it is not right what they are doing

It is right what they are doing, they are following a process.  Just because you disagree with the process doesnt make it wrong.

It is your responsibility to pay, unless you have proof of payment then you owe them.  Simply just saying I tried to pay but your didn’t take the payment wont carry. But you openly admit you owe or dont care about the £25.

Non payment leads to legal action.  To which there are fees and punishment if found against.  

However this wont affect your professional life - slightly judgemental here (sorry) but your attitude to this shows more than the actual payment and costs due.

Phone them - calls are recorded, follow up with an email - As per our telephone conversation my understanding is this….

Pay the £25 and the court case and £80 should disappear. 

However a lot of councils now act electronically and depending on how you have set up your Council tax account depends on the way they contact you.  I missed a couple of payments, first thing I knew about it was a court summons.  (No fees) I phoned them up set up a payment plan.   Court case went ahead (I didn’t attend) Council stated payment plan in place, judge happy (the way it was explained to me) 

When I logged into my council tax account - four letters id not read or was aware of.  

Do you owe £25 - the only ones who know this is the council and you.  To sort this you need to look at your payments and bills.  Ask the council to work out your whole liability for the year and then work out how much youve paid.  (The council will have records of this).

Complain yes about the £25 - where has it come from, why do I now owe it. 

Dont complain about the court process and fees of £80.  

Robbie64

salimnina said:

I emailed them, with proof of errors. Phoning will leave no evidence. 
So the advice is to pay the outstanding fee and wait ? Or shall I appeal altogether.

Also worth mentioning, is that they reviewed my account from 2022, so I expected they covered it all, in other words I can still argue that in court.

My concern is not the £25.

What is your concern? That you weren't aware of owing the £25 (or possibly that you are saying the council are wrong by saying you owe £25) or that the council have added another £80 to the total?

I'm not sure if you can appeal against it as such (I know it's possible to appeal against being held liable for council tax but I don't know if the same can be done against a disputed outstanding amount) though you can ask them to look again at what you owe from prior to this council tax financial year.

The court is concerned with only two things: 

1. whether you have a liability to pay council tax at the relevant time, and:

2. whether you owe council tax from that time

You can state that you don't owe the money and the court may / will probably suspend any action and ask the council to look again at its figures. But if you do owe the £25 they could send it back to the court to obtain a liability order so you would be no better off.

If you do owe £25 then my advice is to pay it before the case gets to court as it might save you an additional £80. if you think you don't owe the £25 (because you paid all that was owing) then it's fair enough to dispute this.