Council tax dilemma

[SteveDyson]

Last week i went online on Wokingham council website to order a copy of my council tax bill. It normally comes in April but somehow i didn’t receive my council bill.
Yesterday i got a court summon letter from council, asking me to appear in court because i missed two payments. According to their record they sent me two reminders, one in April and one in May but i didn’t receive any of those reminders.

I complained council about it yesterday and today they came back to me saying that council has followed the proper procedure.

To avoid court attendance, they have given me two options;

Option 1:
Pay the whole year council tax with £50 summons fees before 17th June (court appearing date).

Option 2:
Pay the council tax in 10 installments with £100 fine (£50 summons fees + £50 Liability charges)

My entire fault is that i didn’t receive the council tax bill and the reminders. There is nothing wrong with postal delivery in my area and all the other post is coming on time.

I have emailed everything to MP and she is looking into that but i don’t know how soon she is going to get any answer on my query.

I don’t know what I should do. £50 or £100 fine is not fair at all.

[Simpo Two]

What address do they have for you and is it correct?

[skeggysteve]

I've sent you an email but I'm not sure if the PH email system is working at the moment.

It sounds a bit odd to me as the new CT bill will be from April 5th so how have you missed 2 payments.

I'm sure that the LA (Local Authority) have to give you a certain amount of time to respond to legal demands - 28 days I think.

LA always think they can do no wrong but they often do get things wrong but no one will take responsibility.

If you go to court the LA will be there and will try to sort it out (in their favour!) before it gets into the actual court.

Best of luck.

[KTF]

So you asked for a reminder, knew you had to pay it anyway but then didn't bother because they didn't send you the bill?

What was wrong with phoning them up and paying over the phone, going to the office in person or just setting up a direct debit like everyone else?

[NST]

KTF said:

So you asked for a reminder, knew you had to pay it anyway but then didn't bother because they didn't send you the bill?

What was wrong with phoning them up and paying over the phone, going to the office in person or just setting up a direct debit like everyone else?

If the OP LA is anything like my local LA.. I can imagine the phone call goes goes something like this ..

choose between 8 options
choose between 6 options
choose between 7 options
finally choose between 4 options

then you realise you are 17th in the queue.. cue 30mins on the phone.. you are now 16th in the queue..

I did the above for 3 weeks.

luckly i didn't receive any court letters etc and i didn't receive my council tax bill either.

I cheated by pressing some randoms options and acting stupid.. I got to the front of the queue..

I have also realised that the LA doesn't respond to emails.. even though i sent 3 emails. why have an email options if no one monitors mail box?!

going to the local council office is impossible, I work during the hours they are open..

[SteveDyson]

I asked them for my council tax bill not for reminders because i never received any bill or reminders.

Edited by SteveDyson on Wednesday 29th May 10:13

[Simpo Two]

Start at the beginning:

Simpo Two said:

What address do they have for you and is it correct?

[SteveDyson]

Yes they have got my correct address.

1- I didn't received any council tax bill
2- Didn't received any reminder
3- But did receive the summons letter.

Edited by SteveDyson on Wednesday 29th May 11:18

[SteveDyson]

Yes they have got my correct address.

1- I didn't received any council tax bill
2- Didn't received any reminder
3- But did receive the summons letter.

Edited by SteveDyson on Wednesday 29th May 11:21

[Simpo Two]

SteveDyson said:

Yes they have got my correct address.

1- I didn't received any council tax bill
2- Did received any reminder
3- But did receive the summons letter.

Chances are they didn't post it - but you can't prove it and they will say that they did and that it's is up to you to pay the Tax regardless. Councils may be incompetent but they have in-house (free) legal teams and you don't.

I think you can either choose their option 1, and pay £50 extra, or go to court and plead your case. You may be innocent but you can't prove you didn't get the letters (think how many people must say that!) and courts make decisions based on provable facts. The Council has no reason to lie (even if they did). So it's up to you but I don't think you have a decent case.

Then again, if it goes to court the Council will incur a hearing fee (£75 IIRC) which is not recoverable - in fact neither is the cost of the Summons - so whilst they might win, they will be about £125 down. So you might take Option 3 - namely call them, point this out and offer to pay in full now (just the tax not the extras). They might realise it's the cheapest option for them.

[SteveDyson]

I will probably go for option one but i don't think i can get away with £50.

I am just waiting to hear back from MP because she has discussed this issue with council team (as she knows few other people having this same problem of not receiving their bills)

[Simpo Two]

Interesting.

Sadly Councils can be both liars and bullies, but if a gang of you all report the same thing, and an MP is on your side, hopefully they will roll over.

[Countdown]

OP - your Council appears to be the complete opposite of mine. They have bent over backwards to try and issue me with the correct bill (I had a tenant move out, a void period, and a tenant move in ALL overlapping two financial years). Because the property was void some bills seem to have gone astray. However it was all sorted in two emails.


Very surprised that they would issue a summons for only 2 missed payments ?

[Du1point8]

Try leaving a rented flat, asking the council for the final bill... receiving the final bill and paying it after confirmation that the bill is correct and now we are off the hook.

Cue 8 months later stty letters coming out for us (they finally tracked us down) about unpaid tax and then summons with £400 fines.

Took a lot of negotiation and telling them to stick it up their arse when they realised they had sent me a FINAL bill (stated on said bill) out and the mistake was their end.

The amount in question.

£10.

[fido]

SteveDyson said:

I am just waiting to hear back from MP because she has discussed this issue with council team (as she knows few other people having this same problem of not receiving their bills)

Assume you have spoken to (or e-mailed) the Council Tax people, explained the situation and offered to pay the outstanding now (over the phone by Switch?).

As above, I can't understand why they would go to Court if you have offered to pay there and then?

I would stand your ground, and keep the written/e-mail evidence - they will look like bullies if it goes to Court.

[SteveDyson]

I have been renting as a private tenant for 9 years and never missed any payment before and never had any problem with any other borough councils and never missed a single payment.

[Du1point8]

SteveDyson said:

I have been renting as a private tenant for 9 years and never missed any payment before and never had any problem with any other borough councils and never missed a single payment.

Ring up... offer to pay minus the fine, explaining the situation, then you have a 50/50 chance of them wavering the fine.

Done that twice in London due to flatmate 'forgetting' to pay, they were just happy to get the money.

[SteveDyson]

fido said:

Assume you have spoken to (or e-mailed) the Council Tax people, explained the situation and offered to pay the outstanding now (over the phone by Switch?).

As above, I can't understand why they would go to Court if you have offered to pay there and then?

I would stand your ground, and keep the written/e-mail evidence - they will look like bullies if it goes to Court.

I explained the situation to council tax team over the phone and offered them to pay the council tax either in installments or full as an one payment in 3 days but they just gave me two options (mentioned in my post)

I have complained to the council tax team and outcome is not in my favour.

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Reply----------------------------------------------

I understand that in your email you have stated that you did not receive any of the above documentation except the Summons Notice. When producing the documents shown above, the computer system logs the date they were generated from the system and the dispatch of the documents is done on site with all action taken to ensure the safe delivery of the documents, they are picked up directly from our offices by the Royal Mail and full counts done of the documents to ensure all figures match. The Legislation that governs the collection and enforcement of Council Tax is the Local Government Finance Act (1992) it states that “If a Summons is served by post, then service is deemed to be effected by properly addressing, prepaying and posting a letter containing the document” It is only in the case that the Royal Mail return documents to us as undelivered that we deem them to be not legally served. I can confirm that none of the documents mentioned in this email have been returned to Wokingham Borough Council as not being delivered.

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[Countdown]

Du1point8 said:

they were just happy to get the money.

Definitely this. They spend so much time dealing with scrotes that they'll be happy to have somebody willing to pay. I think, if you agree to set up a DD they'll even let you pay in instalments.

[KTF]

Did you get all the information as per this page on their site:

http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/counciltax/ctax/unpaid...