[Closed] Grrr. Just had summons for non-payment of council tax. BUT

I should add they reckon I have paid nothing so far.

did you input your council tax account number correctly?

Show them bank statements with the payment on. Get them to find the money in their system.

Why have you only paid half? Is it a prior non payment that has now become a full bill and hence why paying half has not cleared the account? I don't quite understand paying half, I pay by instalments but it's ten payments.

I paid 50% of it back in April.

I believe the council usually require 100%.

I share a house with my bother, I pay half, he pays half. I always pay mine before him as he never gets his act together till later in the year. Never had a problem with it as long as they get all the money by about September. However, the summons implies they have received nothing at all and my account was debited by almost a grand back in April.

I have checked all the details on my internet banking and they are all correct. The bank statement however only shows the code I put in, i.e. Council Tax and not the details entered in order to pay the BACS.

They normally threaten to take away your payment by instalments when you are late with too many payments so the letter might just be a standard one.

tbh it sounds like you only have yourselves to blame, if they are expecting full payment by a certain date and you have only paid half then they will chase you, it's no good saying we have never normally had a problem.

You could ask them if you could pay in installments and not tell your brother. Pay your half up front which will clear the first 5 months instalments and then by the time your brother gets his act together he could pay the remainder in one lump too. They don't mind getting instalments early.

BTW this is the first notice we have had. There has been no prior reminder or letter asking why we have not yet paid????

It still doesn't account for the fact that I HAVE paid 50 percent and it has gone from my account but they appear not to have received a penny. So where is that money?

You'll need to ask them that. Probably best make an appt and go in person.

Phone them up, ask them to trance a payment from your bank account number to see where it has gone. If they find it then they can credit this to your bill. Then you just need to get the other half from your brother + the 50. If both your names are in the bill or just yours you are still liable to pay the bill.

But why should I still have to pay the £50 even though it will turn out to be their mistake.

The "pay full amount" will probably turn out to be their mistake. The "you have only paid half" won't though.

I appreciate that, but we will still be well within the payment window whereby the other 50% is due.I have effectively paid 5 instalments up front meaning they would not normally be getting further payment until August-September anyway. Something that has worked without a problem for the past 14 years.

If you're confident that's all correct- ie you paid it correctly and you're still within your payment schedule- then all should be well.

so you are on 10 instalments from April to Feb?

In that case it sounds like there has just been a problem with your payment going through in which case it may be hard to get them to allow you to pay by instalments in future, even if it was their mess up.

Write them a letter with a print out of the payment telling them the problem is their end and if you end up going to court over their mistake you will charge them £200 + costs.

ive had this kind of shit with them loads. dont panic.
they seem to threaten court rather than speak to you like any other company would who havent been paid. just go to the offices speak to someone and remain calm. they will sort it out and drop the £50
its not their fault.......they are just incompetent.
it gets me down though. they only open during buisness hrs (at least round here) which strikes me as ridiculous since if you dont work, you dont have to pay and if you do work, you cant get there cos they arnt open when youre not in work.

Thanks Jonah. I will get to the local one stop shop tomorrow and try and talk to someone with a brain.

Had this last year with a parking fine, paid by card and got a receipt number off a human at the call centre, a few weeks later a large fine because i hadnt paid, a few long and boring phone calls later and emails and they trace dthe money it had been payed into another account by some member of staff who didnt know what she was doing obviously.

and in the bank a few days ago, somebody else had paid money into an account by mistake, and bank wouldnt refund it, told her to contact the bank that the money had been paid into and ask for it be returned, but it appears from the heated conversation she had tried that and they wouldnt.But it made a long wait in the queue interesting.

[i]Thanks Jonah. I will get to the local one stop shop tomorrow and try and talk to someone with a brain. [/i]

So neither you nor your brother then? 😉

Summons is just generated automatically. Speak to someone in a soulless job in council tax and find out if they've retained any humanity

And tell your brother to pull his finger out

project - Member

and in the bank a few days ago, somebody else had paid money into an account by mistake, and bank wouldnt refund it, told her to contact the bank that the money had been paid into and ask for it be returned, but it appears from the heated conversation she had tried that and they wouldnt.But it made a long wait in the queue interesting.

Aye, that's how it works- you contact the bank you paid the money to, they seek consent from their customer to refund, if they can't get it then it's court time. Only way it could work really

Just a heads up, if you end up with bailiffs EITHER you or your brother can be liable to pay the balance!

they seem to threaten court rather than speak to you like any other company would who havent been paid.

This is very true - in fact I found it impossible to get to speak to someone over a period of about six weeks last year, in fact I had to put in an FOI to get hold of their own official guidelines on the application of the new rules, which it turned out they hadn't even written until after my FOI was in, and after they gave me a summons because they didn't actually understand the rules themselves.

It was most satisfying to sit in front of a bench of magistrates and show them the relevant points in the legislation, the government guidelines, the six emails I had sent to the council trying to resolve the issue, then the FOI request, then the internal rules I had got hold of, and happily pull apart the council, with their own solicitor/officer accepting I was right - and have it dismissed, I pertinently made the point that it was only my tenacity that had caused this, and a lot of far more vulnerable people would have just paid, or even been ruled against and had bailiffs sent. Lady in the court from CAB for other cases took all my work to use to help other people 😀

Just go and talk to them, put a payment plan in place for the remaining amount and they should withdraw the summons.

I had this experience recently, instead of getting a bill me and my housemate received a courts summons I wasn't impressed.

Few things
Speak to the council, there will be a number on the letter. Have all the info from your payment to hand (& scan it so you can email it)
Make sure between you and your brother you make full payment within their terms, what we did last year is not the best guideline.
Avoid using BACS for payments like this, if the council has a payment portal use that as you will get a receipt.

Phone call made. All good now. Money was clearly on my account and she could not understand why we had received a summons. Very apologetic, all cancelled. No come back, no extra charges to pay, no need to pay in full in future. Just wonder why we have such a crap system in place that causes innocent people to feel bad for 24 hours. Next year, I will be visiting my one stop shop and getting a receipt!

Mistakes happen. How many council tax transactions do they deal with?! 1000's of them, so a few are going to get messed up. Just a shame it happened to you.

no need to pay in full in future.

You paid 50 percent. So they gave you a massive discount as a goodwill gesture?

@welshfarmer

You need to read the original council tax mandate, it will be either 100% or 10 payments on agreed dates at agreed amounts.
You're very lucky that your council tax dept was accomodating of you paying in a way outside of their stipulated requirements.
Myself and an old housemate set up our standing orders wrong (we were paying opposite months) we got a summons despite having paid more than required at that point but not 100% and not to the correct schedule.
They waived the court fee but we had to pay the remainder in cash straight away

I always go to the post office so they can scan the barcode and staple a receipt to my council tax bill I keep in the car. That way I have proof of payments and I can't make a mistake entering the wrong account number.

As said above it looks like your payment has not gone to your council tax account. Find out why and where it is.
Summons to court is normally a computer generated document - the computer sees that you have been sent a bill plus at least one reminder but have not paid.
If the money went elsewhere because you made a mistake then it's unlikely that costs will be removed. If you paid the money and it ended up with the council but not allocated to your account then speaking to someone will normally sort the issue and get the costs removed. If you don't quote the reference number with your payment they can't trace where it needs to go.

It's not Anglesey is it? They're a shower!

Interesting, Im set up to pay around £135 per month over 10 months, I pay £150 per month for 9 months. Never had any issues doing it that way.

Had an Email confirmation and apology. They told me it doesn't matter how you pay the instalments so long as you never get into arrears as this will automatically generate a reminder followed by a summons. So your 9 months paying slightly more is going to be fine. Likewise my system of paying 1/2 at the beginning and the other half after about 4 months is also not a problem. All this of course assumes their system actually registers the fact that they have had the money out of my account. Something it didn't do this time and which they are looking into, since the lady was clearly able to see on our account that I had paid back in April????