Facing council tax harassment despite tenant payments?

Dear Kabir,
This seems an awful situation that may be the councils lack of dealing with communications effectively. However, you firstly need to find out what steps have the council taken to enforce the Council Tax, have they ignored your correspondence and obtained a Liability Order from the courts hence why they have instructed enforcement agents to collect the debt.
I would take the time to address this problem in a slightly more old fashioned way. Firstly, compile a file in date order of all the relevant information that you have and attend the council offices to discuss the matter. Give them that copy and if necessary a digital copy too. Hopefully they will see sense.
If they do not respond as you wish, approach your local councilor with the same information.
Once you have established what they have or have not been doing and after the matter has been resolved you might want to report them for maladministration, but not until the facts are certain!
My council take months to respond to any queries and carry on their enforcement proceedings while they await to check their inbox for the pertinent information that would absolve me from liability.

Have you thought of using social media. Councils tend to be sensitive to such matters but watch out as they will come out fighting which may not help the resolution.
Good luck.

Inform Council Tax dept and Cc to dept collection agency in writing that your tenants are registered as occupiers of the property for Council Tax purposes and should these demands pay payment not desist forthwith then you will be seeking legal address and compensation.

Include a copy of the Council Tax demand for October 2023 – 31.3.2024 and 1.4.2024 – 31.3.2025, plus a copy of your tenant’s bank statement (properly blacked out where applicable).

You do have a GDPR policy in place which you have given a copy of to your tenant AND have registered with the ICO?

Hello Kabir

We had a very similar situation with a London borough a few years ago. The issue arose because their admin team was overwhelmed, whereas the credit recovery team was on a mission. It went on for months, if not years, round in circles with debt recovery people involved.

Your situation is that Birmingham is basing a case against you on information that as an institution it knows is false. If it presents that to a court it will be committing perjury. What we threatened to do was to seek an injunction to prevent the council from issuing ANY further credit actions against anyone on the basis that it habitually presented false information to a court. This defence worked very well for some big mortgage borrowers during the financial crisis and briefly bought repossessions to a complete halt. In their haste to repossess, the mortgage companies automated and took short cuts, which involved them using information that was not accurate.

For us the warning was enough. It never got anywhere near the courts and we even received a small payment for our “inconvenince”.

At a minimum you should escalate it to a formal complaint to the council rather than wasting any more time talking to the individual departments. We were recommended to do that too by a council official on another issue and that also worked. Perhaps you should mix the two strategies, threaten to seek an injunction as part of your formal complaint.

Hope that helps.

Stuart

As a former local authority housing officer. I regret to inform you that the council tax and housing benefit departments are the worst for incompetence and maladministration!

Others have provided sound advice which I do hope you take as it is egregious how dreadful local authorities behave with little consequences for their failings as PUBLIC AUTHORITIES!
Good luck ?

I’d let them take me to a court for non-payment of a debt that isn’t mine.

formal complaint to be sent to the council is the best way. That way it’s on official record and they have to respond and deal with it in a specific timescale. State any further harassment from them claiming a debt that is clearly not yours, and you will be seeking to take legal action.

Reply to the comment left by at 12/06/2024 – 10:20
Thanks

Reply to the comment left by Stuart Trow at 12/06/2024 – 10:29
Thanks

A small landlord threatening the council with legal action will not help. Firstly in order to take legal action against a council you cannot use MCOL, so are almost bound to use a solicitor, how much do you think that will cost.
Best bet as suggested is to formally complain and contact your councillor.
(I tried to complain once to Derby City Council by turning up out of hours and posting a formal complaint through the council house letter box – however when the council house was refurbished at some vast expense they had removed the letter box for ‘security reasons’)

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 12/06/2024 – 13:19
Err fact bailiffs are pursuing him means the liability order has already been granted at court.