Council Tax bill for property I no longer live in

[sarahsquarepants]

I'm having an issue with the council at the moment over the council tax for my previous property. I was the sole tenant until Sept 7th when I moved out and moved into another flat nearby with by boyfriend (now husband), we called them to notify them of the move and changed our council tax to our current property.

On Friday I was went a letter from a baliff company saying they were coming to my house to recover money owed to the council, without any further explanation. We had received no previous correspondence from the council, despite them knowing where we live and had (to my knowledge) paid the council tax in full before moving out.. We contacted the baliff's who agreed to put the account on hold while we spoke to the council.

We contacted the council by telephone, who claimed I had lived at the property until the end of October (I have my tenancy agreement to prove otherwise) therefore I had been charged for this period. In addition because I hadn't reviewed my single occupancy discount they had assumed I was then living with someone and added this on too. When I informed them that I was still living alone, they said I 'couldn't prove it' as my partner didn't pay council tax at his previous property (didn't have to).

It was a horrible conversation, we just felt completely attacked, like they were constantly looking for excuses to charge money and dodging our questions and offering off sustantial evidence to prove where we are living and when. The even said that legally they didn't need to inform us that they had gone to court and that the sum had been passed onto a baliff?!

Any advice?

Kathryn

[lea-marie]

They do have to inform you several times of monies owed before taking you to court (including a warning that they intend to take you to court), and before passing to a recovery firm. In regards to the substantial evidence, this goes both ways, as they are unable to prove that he was living there (obviously we know he wasn't). I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure they cannot charge you for him being there without proof that he was there - itis an unsupported claim on their behalf.
As for the outstanding, if you can prove that you were not occupying that property then you are not liable for that charge, and you do not owe them and they cannot chase you for it.

[sarahsquarepants]

Hey Lea,

I've got copies of my tenancy agreement but they don't want them! Only interested in Adam's details. It was like we phoned them with a problem and they just tried to dig around for more to see if they could get more money out of us. They have absolutely no reason to think Adam lived there - they didn't even know he existed until we called them today and I put Adam on the phone to deal with it because I was too upset. They just completely ignored him and started questioning him about his previous address and why he wasn't the named person on the council tax there - trying to see if they could squeeze money out of him for that too! I was gobsmacked with their attitude, they were very rude and had clearly decided we were liers and that was that.

KJ x