Summons for Unpaid Council Tax
Discussion
In short
My son is a student and live with 2 other students, as such their council tax liability is zero.
Yesterday they received a summons for unpaid council tax.
When they moved into the flat in September they advised the Council that they were students and provided the evidence that they have used with other councils.
After a couple of weeks the council emailed them to say that the evidence wasn't suitable. The students asked was what suitable and after another week or so were told they needed to get a form from uni but there was no clarity as to what the form needed to say.
They go to 3 different uni's so each got their form and sent it off, Council come back 2 weeks later to say the forms are incorrect.
Students enquire again and after another dealy are told that the form needs to be signed by uni admin. All 3 Unis say this is unusual, 2 of them sign the form the 3rd requires it to be posted to them, it took the Uni a couple of weeks to sign it and post it back.
The last form arrived the day before the summons. The students were planning to go to the Council today with the forms.
They are pretty fed up that they have a summons and a potential fine even though there is no tax liability. The Council have been slow dealing with each correspondence, the students have turned things around as promptly as possible.
What should their approach be? They don't want to pay the fine as they feel its unreasonable and at £100 they can't afford it.
My suggestion is take the evidence to the Council today and ask them to drop the summons. The problem is that I suspect the Council will not be that reasonable because they have issued the summons.
My son is a student and live with 2 other students, as such their council tax liability is zero.
Yesterday they received a summons for unpaid council tax.
When they moved into the flat in September they advised the Council that they were students and provided the evidence that they have used with other councils.
After a couple of weeks the council emailed them to say that the evidence wasn't suitable. The students asked was what suitable and after another week or so were told they needed to get a form from uni but there was no clarity as to what the form needed to say.
They go to 3 different uni's so each got their form and sent it off, Council come back 2 weeks later to say the forms are incorrect.
Students enquire again and after another dealy are told that the form needs to be signed by uni admin. All 3 Unis say this is unusual, 2 of them sign the form the 3rd requires it to be posted to them, it took the Uni a couple of weeks to sign it and post it back.
The last form arrived the day before the summons. The students were planning to go to the Council today with the forms.
They are pretty fed up that they have a summons and a potential fine even though there is no tax liability. The Council have been slow dealing with each correspondence, the students have turned things around as promptly as possible.
What should their approach be? They don't want to pay the fine as they feel its unreasonable and at £100 they can't afford it.
My suggestion is take the evidence to the Council today and ask them to drop the summons. The problem is that I suspect the Council will not be that reasonable because they have issued the summons.
blueg33 said:
In short
The problem is that I suspect the Council will not be that reasonable because they have issued the summons.
Not necessarily. We got a summons for an unpaid direct debit. We weren't notified it hadn't been paid until the end of the year (some 7 months later), which I ignored, as after looking at my bank statements the last few months had been paid. I called to query this, and was told as its paid in advance, they don't realise one direct debit is missed until the end of the year. They took payment over the phone for missing debit, and cancelled the summons and any costs.The problem is that I suspect the Council will not be that reasonable because they have issued the summons.
So I guess if they are as sensible, they will cancel everything when provided with the evidence.
h about being starved of cash for 'essential services'.Which Council was it? Its a fairly regular occurrence for me to receive a summons at work, and respond but the Council don't deal with the response before the Court date.
Councils have been stricter recently on allowances, exemptions, delays in payment etc mainly because its their money these days!
Councils have been stricter recently on allowances, exemptions, delays in payment etc mainly because its their money these days!
I work in this area. In fact one of my tasks is sending email before summons are due to warn people whats about to happen. If they respond all recovery work is suspended until query is resolved.
There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Prolex-UK said:
I work in this area. In fact one of my tasks is sending email before summons are due to warn people whats about to happen. If they respond all recovery work is suspended until query is resolved.
There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Lambeth. Apart from really poor and unclear communication, it looks like the standard form wasn't sufficient, it had to be certified.There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
Council tax departments are some of the worst I’ve had the misfortune to deal with.
The best was when I moved into a new build property and got repeated letters about not registering that I had moved in. When I had rung them to register, I got told they couldn’t issue a council tax bill as the house hadn’t been banded yet. Didn’t stop them from sending out letter saying I hadn’t registered for council tax. Every time I rang them I got an earful for not doing it until they logged in and it told them it was unbanded....
Jokers.
The best was when I moved into a new build property and got repeated letters about not registering that I had moved in. When I had rung them to register, I got told they couldn’t issue a council tax bill as the house hadn’t been banded yet. Didn’t stop them from sending out letter saying I hadn’t registered for council tax. Every time I rang them I got an earful for not doing it until they logged in and it told them it was unbanded....
Jokers.
blueg33 said:
Prolex-UK said:
I work in this area. In fact one of my tasks is sending email before summons are due to warn people whats about to happen. If they respond all recovery work is suspended until query is resolved.
There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Lambeth. Apart from really poor and unclear communication, it looks like the standard form wasn't sufficient, it had to be certified.There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
blueg33 said:
Prolex-UK said:
I work in this area. In fact one of my tasks is sending email before summons are due to warn people whats about to happen. If they respond all recovery work is suspended until query is resolved.
There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Lambeth. Apart from really poor and unclear communication, it looks like the standard form wasn't sufficient, it had to be certified.There is a standard form universities send out when asked giving hours studied etc so wonder what was going on.
Whats was the council name ?
Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
The university should sign the form give it to the student to give to ctax
Problem is there are a lot of dodgy people trying to claim the relief fraudulently.
Some places make you do it every year....
blueg33 said:
At work my team regularly have arguments about tax on demolished buildings. We have to prove they have been demolished. Not sure why the council can’t just go and look!
We have an inspection team who deal with that.We also monitor the various reliefs granted.
Some councils deleted these teams during austerity though.
Prolex-UK said:
Thats a surprise. They are quite good now.
The university should sign the form give it to the student to give to ctax
Problem is there are a lot of dodgy people trying to claim the relief fraudulently.
Some places make you do it every year....
Indeed Lambeth are better than many and yes the basic issue is how much attempted fraud there is in both council tax and business rates. Its not helped by the complex avoidance schemes that exist for business rates these days.The university should sign the form give it to the student to give to ctax
Problem is there are a lot of dodgy people trying to claim the relief fraudulently.
Some places make you do it every year....
Red Devil said:
A travesty if they hadn't. I wonder how much public money was wasted by such jobsworths.
I would save your ire for the money wasted by amateur and semi professional scam artists, fraudsters, grifters (call them what you will) who can quite easily have dozens of frauds on the go at any point in time.The council I work at has pulled together a hub to co ordinate debt recovery across all areas, and I was involved in that.
For someone who just pays bills when they land, and assumes everyone else does, the info I saw was quite eye opening.
At the low level is people who make a DD arrangement and then break it the day its due. They wait until the final chase before summons comes, and then come up with a sob story, and make a new one. Which they then break....
Each story requires investigating, checking against data in other systems, more requests for correspondence etc
As you go up the scale, the stories become more complex, identifications become fabricated, evidence is harder to judge. The fee for late payment is fixed.
If you experience delays from the ctax team, it's because a finite number of staff are having to wade through this sort of work. If everyone just paid council tax, the team of 30 odd could be down to about 6, or 2 if they all did it online.
That doesn't excuse poor administration by a council though, which i'm glad you got sorted.
All I can say is that if they made cock ups like that where I worked, our revenues manager would be tearing the staff member's ear off..
Edited by Ian Geary on Saturday 10th November 08:59
Ian Geary said:
Red Devil said:
A travesty if they hadn't. I wonder how much public money was wasted by such jobsworths.
I would save your ire for the money wasted by amateur and semi professional scam artists, fraudsters, grifters (call them what you will) who can quite easily have dozens of frauds on the go at any point in time.The council I work at has pulled together a hub to co ordinate debt recovery across all areas, and I was involved in that.
For someone who just pays bills when they land, and assumes everyone else does, the info I saw was quite eye opening.
At the low level is people who make a DD arrangement and then break it the day its due. They wait until the final chase before summons comes, and then come up with a sob story, and make a new one. Which they then break....
Each story requires investigating, checking against data in other systems, more requests for correspondence etc
As you go up the scale, the stories become more complex, identifications become fabricated, evidence is harder to judge. The fee for late payment is fixed.
If you experience delays from the ctax team, it's because a finite number of staff are having to wade through this sort of work. If everyone just paid council tax, the team of 30 odd could be down to about 6, or 2 if they all did it online.
That doesn't excuse poor administration by a council though, which i'm glad you got sorted.
All I can say is that if they made cock ups like that where I worked, our revenues manager would be tearing the staff member's ear off..
Edited by Ian Geary on Saturday 10th November 08:59
blueg33 said:
Lambeth. Apart from really poor and unclear communication, it looks like the standard form wasn't sufficient, it had to be certified.
Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
Yeah. But why didn't your son sort it out/post the query himself?Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
Why did his father get involved?
Isn't going to university all part of this big growing up thing? You know, holding your own hand instead of Dad holding it?
The Mad Monk said:
blueg33 said:
Lambeth. Apart from really poor and unclear communication, it looks like the standard form wasn't sufficient, it had to be certified.
Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
Yeah. But why didn't your son sort it out/post the query himself?Thing is they didnt suspend the action, they ignored the fact they were in dialogue.
It is now sorted, just seems like a dumb process and a waste of time
Why did his father get involved?
Isn't going to university all part of this big growing up thing? You know, holding your own hand instead of Dad holding it?
Prolex-UK said:
blueg33 said:
At work my team regularly have arguments about tax on demolished buildings. We have to prove they have been demolished. Not sure why the council can’t just go and look!
We have an inspection team who deal with that.We also monitor the various reliefs granted.
Some councils deleted these teams during austerity though.
The reason councils git rid of their inspection teams was because they were a cost which effectively had no benefit. Councils were responsible for collecting business rates but as all the money was passed on to central government there was little incentive to do it to the best of their ability. So they saved money by getting rid of inspectors etc. Now they keep 50% of the income from business rates they need the inspectors back.
Its important to remember that Council Tax and Business Rates are very efficient forms of tax, with very low avoidance rates, and very high collection rates. In 2016-17 the in year collection rate was just over 97% for council tax and 98% for business rates. Its also cheap to collect.
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