Erroneous Council Tax liability order?

We have received two Notices of Enforcement for unpaid council tax, which came as a complete shock, as at no point did we receive any bills or a court summons, so we had no knowledge of the debt as they have been sending documents to the wrong address. The notices of enforcement state that a Court Liability Order was issued on 30th January 2025.

I have no problem with paying the council tax bills, which they finally sent to us today (by email!), but I’m not happy about being expected to pay the various court fees and bailiff fees which they insist must be paid.

The Council (the same one that obtained the court liability order) actually bought the properties from us last September. We notified the council tax department immediately after the sale that they (the council) had purchased them, by email and by letter via 1st class Royal Mail. The email didn’t include our postal address, but the letter did.

I rang the council today, and they denied receipt of the email and letter. When I informed them I had a receipt for the email, the person then managed to find it but continued to insist that they had not received the letter and as the email didn’t state our new address, they had sent the Council Tax Demand and Court summons to our old address. The person also stated that they don’t send Council Tax Bills/Demands by email. I’m not sure this is true, as they have done so previously (and finally sent us the bills in question by email today). Do I have to prove that they received our letter, or is first-class mail deemed to be delivered after a given time has lapsed? It seems rich that they can deny receipt of correspondence from us, but it’s ok for them to obtain a court judgement without our knowledge.

I’ve also checked council tax bills for other properties and can see we did provide them with our new address for those properties. Is it necessary to prove we gave them up-to-date address details individually for every property we own in their borough or is it reasonable to expect them to carry details across?

The email and letter also made it clear that the Council had purchased the property from us. The Sales Contract clearly shows our up-to-date address, but the person I spoke to said they wouldn’t check that. I appreciate council tax is a different department, but I did highlight to them that the council had purchased the property. The sales contract evidences that the council were in receipt of our up-to-date address, even if we cannot prove they received our letter.

We feel that having emailed them and written to them as well as notifying them of our change of address for other properties, that we took all reasonable steps to provide them with up to date address details (not to mention the property sales contract), and that their own ineptitude is the cause of this problem, but they are insisting the onus is on us and they are within their rights to send the bailffs to our home.

Any advice on whether I’m bashing my head against the wall trying to argue about the added fees or whether I should just pay up would be appreciated. If anyone feels we should fight this or apply to get the Liability Orders overturned, advice on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for any advice given.

Gerry