Anyone help me with my new council tax bill?

gabyjane

Ok have just recieved our new bill and was expecting march and april free as we pay 10 months..im guessing like everyone else..unless it is yearly. Anyway I have just rung them and they said because i was late paying it and paid the last installment in feb that the computer has automatically sent out the new tax years and we just have to pay the next 10 months, but we can have march free..I have always paid 10 months and always had 2 off, also it was their fault it was late as we moved BUT the years amount was paid about 3 weeks ago..enough time for it to register we have paid..
Am i wrong here?

sassybooboos

your council tax bill is a charge for 12 months however the council only do it over 10 months thus giving you normally feb and march with nothing to pay.

if you moved in and they didn't bill you straight away cause maybe they didn't know you lived there they will have spread the bill to february so as not to make your instalments too high.

if you start your new bill fresh in april then next feb and march there will be nothing to pay.

they have thousands of people moving in and out of properties and only a handful of staff so the delay in billing you could have been due to that. also people assume that the previous people will have told them they have moved out, doesn't happen very often. did you phone them straight away to say you had moved in.

the new yearly bills are done automatically by their computer system but any changes have to be done by a person manually.

gabyjane

Hi thanks for the reply, firstly its a new house so no one here before us. When we moved in we banded too high and paid the first 2 months in a higher band, it was then dropped and we pay a lower band..we were and are paid up to date on both houses which is why i thought march and april were free as such as the new bill is for another 10 months not 12..

We have had the new bill as i said and it is lower each month than it was but still 10 months it makes the yearly amount they want but im not sure why they didnt just keep it higher and bill us for 10 months like everyone else..

In short why were we paying higher over 10 months last time and now we are paying slightly less over longer..really it balances itself out?

Hope that makes some sense!

gabyjane

Ok these are the dates when i paid that they went through with me on the phone..

Old property...
17th April 07 £103.67
17th May £106.00
25th June £106.00
6th August £106.00

New property
28th sept £202.26
6th Dec £172.37
31st jan 08 £173.00
8th March £173.00

So toal for the year was £1142.30 so thats the above paid and done..
Guessing we had the next 2 months off i.e April and may that's wht im confused why we have to pay Aprils bill?
It has dropped to £126 per month from now on? if our payments from sept onwards should have been the same as now how come they weren't then...
Hopefully im missing something!!

sassybooboos

if you want to check you have been charged correctly. do this

divide the yearly charge by 365 days or 366 if leap year then times the daily rate by how many days you have been there.