Evening all

Right today have received a court summons for non payment of business rates on a property I currently occupy

However before I even took the property on I exchanged e-mails with the small biz dept of the local council (luckily I still have these)

Confirming my property was indeed and would remain 100% business rate free until march 2013 under the government scheme (rateable value under 5k pa)

Anyway I filled in the forms he e-mailed in an attachment,sent them off this was the first week for may this year! I never had any correspondence to this I assumed that was standard practice no one said I would receive anything confirming it etc

Anyway fast forward 3 months I got a letter about 2 weeks ago about non payment of 2 months worth of rates?

I put the letter to one side to contact the council then

However I got into other things and it slipped my mind (I'm sure it happens to most)

Then today I receive this letter about a court summons requesting the full amount of business rates payable from 1/5/2012 to 1/3/2013

I am going to contact them reguaring this tomorrow

Where do I stand?

I'm new to all this as you can probably tell

Any help is very much appreciated

Thanks

Nothing to worry about, and even if it goes to Court and they get a Liability Order which has no impct on your credit rating.

If itis a genuniue mistake then the COuncil will amend your account and withdraw the summons. If you have to pay just pay beforfe the court date (plus costs) and all will be fine.

By the way Councils are being much more proactive this year and cutting to a minimum the time for issuing reminders, summons etc, as it helps their cash flow.

For the first time ever I have picked up 2 liability orders this year, and know have Bailiffs on the phone. Its a strange position as their parent company is the same as mine!

This has just happened to me, too.

I'd completed the application for small business relief, but they'd not received it. A phone call and an email sorted it.

 
 
Your small business relief has also been processed and it has been applied to your account. You have no charge outstanding so I have withdrawn the summons and associated cost’s.
 

OK, good luck and keep calm and your defiant defence should work

In my experience they make the rules up as they go along and it's always in favour of the council!

I'd disagree. In my experience most Councils are very helpful, partticulararly on the phone. I only wish they would deal with emails quicker, many seem to have a standard of dealing with them in 10 working days which is patently ridiculous, particularly when a final warning is only sent a week before a summons can be issued.

Yea someone else told me I would probably still have to turn up and it would be adjourned then

But nope apparently they will withdraw it I have asked for something in writing confirming This aswell

When we requested a rate review because the rates they were charging were wrong they said it would take 6 months to 1 year!

After 6 months had passed we contacted them again asking for an update and they said there still wasn't one.
(
Finally when the time came to sort it, it worked out they owed us a considerable amount of money (nearly £10k) however...some rate relief or something had changed and so actually we were only due about £100. They gave me the impression that they didn't know their ear hole from their ....

Maybe i've had a bad experience!

A few weeks ago I got a letter out of the blue addressed to me and my business but a totally different address (about 200 yards away in Birmingham City Centre). The letter was a demand for a few year's worth of Business rates.

Stupidly, I phoned the council to tell them there'd been a mistake which I put down as a computer glitch or something. Said they'd sort it.

Two days later I receive another letter this time explaining that as I now had 2 properties, our rates relief was cancelled and we owed a fortune for back rates on my actual property plus the mystery property.

Phoned them again. Woman on the phone asked me to write to them and prove that I didn't occupy this second property. She couldn't understand how that was impossible but promised to look into it and get back to me. Nothing.

Another demand, this time threatening court arrived a week or so ago. So I called them again! This time I asked to be put through to a senior person. It turns out that bailiffs visited this mystery property and the occupants told them that we owned the property...and they believed them!!!

I have been told that a team will be coming out to "investigate" (said in a way that I am sure was meant to scare me haha).

Incompetency at its finest!