Summoned for Council Tax Arrears...?

“Oh! And this might be useful....

http://tinyurl.com/7rcxh2h"”

“"Once an order is granted, a number of options are available to enforce payment including bailiffs....."


If this happens you're potentially going to have several hundred pounds added to your outstanding bill. You can avoid this by...........


1) Ignoring the bailiffs completely, do not be tricked into opening the door to them. There is no law which says you must deal with bailiffs.

2) If you've outstanding Council Tax owing, pay it directly to the council.

3) If the council refuses because it's with the bailiffs, ask them to put it in writing that they're refusing payment. In any event you can pay them on-line, through their website, or by internet banking etc.

4) Bailiffs must leave details of fees and charges you incur for each visit etc. There must be evidence they attended in person. Hand delivered (not posted) documentation. Charging without attending is a "Phantom visit" and an attempt to defraud you. In the event payment is taken by the bailiff for such an offence, this will be fraud.

5) They may bill you around £130 for what's called an "attendance fee" or similar. This would almost certainly be spurious. To enquire contact:

nelc.bailiffs@talktalk.net or check out (or may be register) with this forum

http://tinyurl.com/7jppcez

6) They may bill you £24.50 for what they may term a "redemption fee" or "Head H fee". This would almost certainly be spurious. Again contact above”

“Sorry BS but i'm not paying for your kids education twice through income tax and council tax when I don't have any children of my own. Empty the bins is all the council does for me”

“So, what happens when you cannot genuinely pay? Do they come and take your child's bike, teddy and toys, followed by your sofa, table, cutlery??? underwear???

I am sure many people genuinely (not dodgers like scoop007) struggle to pay this unfair tax, anyone pursuing such a person should be ashamed of themselves”

“Rent a house then move after 6 months. Not paid a penny in over 10 years, sorted!!”

“Liability order hearings are typically scheduled to take place at Magistrates' courts, several times a year. There is no requirement for those summoned to attend the court, but for the relatively low numbers that do attend, council employees are deployed at the court to intervene with proceedings.

In a room reserved at the court, council representatives conduct their own enquiries, which in effect obstructs those summoned, appearing before Magistrates. For attendees unfamiliar with these hearings, the procedure may seem regular and unlikely to query it.

Council staff will be either seeking payment plans or attempting to resolve mistakes made in the applications process. However, those obstructed from presenting their cases in the courtroom get no favours. Costs would still stand and Liability Orders obtained.

The council's prominence at these court hearings clearly functions to limit Magistrates' involvement. This can be understood when hundreds, sometimes thousands, are summoned to appear before Magistrates, who theoretically, could all turn up at the same time. The council's intervention clearly makes a complete mockery of the judicial process.

Vast sums can be generated because of the "conveyor belt" style operations involving bulk processing of court orders. It should set alarm bells ringing when revenue in respect of an hour or so's visit to the Magistrates' court can result in the council being entitled to one or two hundred thousand pounds.

Presented with these figures, it would be reasonable to think the authority benefits to a far greater extent from the income generated than the authority incurs obtaining the orders. However, it's typical for councils to say that the revenue generated is no more than the costs it incurs in connection with the court applications for sending out reminders, summonses etc.

Because of the automated nature of council tax administration, these reminder notices and summonses etc, are printed and sent out en masse, and almost certainly benefiting from discounted postage costs from outsourced postal services. Operational costs are further minimised as this part of the recovery process is geared around set dates in the system, which, if no payment activity is detected, triggers dispatchment of the relevant notices.”

“What a weird view of the world.

"This means at £60 for each summons and £23 for a liability order, the costs raised by the council totalled more than £1.01 million"

What you meant to say is that people not paying their council tax are raising these costs.

If someone doesn't pay my business the money they owe and I take them to a claims court - do you blame me for raising costs as well?”

“On reflextion, its quite fitting that the photo resembles nothing like Plymouth Magistrates' Court. If you ever went to one of these things you'd know they resemble nothing like a proper court hearing.”

“Why write an article about Plymouth City Council taking people to court for non payment of Council Tax and then add a photo that obviously isn't Plymouth Magistrates Court??? Lazy Mr Editor, very lazy!!!”

“How goes this work then?

Over 4,000 of these cases were referred to bailiffs to levy distress, but none of them had any goods removed.”