old council tax debt

hamnat

Can anyone advise me?
Today I recieved a demand from Sheriff Officers asking me to pay £1500 within 7 days, for council tax. When I called their helpline no.enquiring about where this had come from,as I have had no demands regarding this at my present address, where I have lived for the past 3 years, I was told it was council tax due from 1993!
My wife had died the previous year,leaving me to bring up 2 girls,aged 13+11 on my own,and at that time I was under a fair bit of pressure. I may well be due some of this,even though I did not try to claim any rebates at the time, but wonder how I can suddenly be expected to repay this at the drop of a hat .I live in Scotland,and would be greatful for any advice.
Thanks

GeorgeUK

You need to draw up a budget so that you know how much disposable income you have. The SOA calculator is good for this. http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

You will then need to contact the local authority and ask for a special payment arrangement. Make sure it is clear that this is for payment towards your arrears so that your current payments are not also put towards the arrears, meaning your current bill does get paid.

That should be a place to start. You'll probably get more replies soon.

gilly135

Hi Hamnat

Have you phoned the council or only the sheriff officer. The same sort of thing happened to me last week, looking for arrears of £334.00 from 1997. I phoned the sheriff officers who were so unhelpful (now there`s a surprise), then phoned the council to explain that I thought that this had been paid but after 11 years I did not have any proof, as like you, they had never been in touch in the last 11 years. The woman who I spoke to said that hundreds of these letters had been sent out but after all this time they were not going to collect the payments and the problem was that one firm of sheriff officers had passed the debts to another firm. She later confirmed this in writing. I would suggest that you try phoning the council office. This was also in Scotland.

Gillian

hamnat

thanks for that,
hamnat