Council tax liability and enforcement queries

[DRAGON2009]

Here are a few questions

1. If the Council know a male and female live together and there is a long history of council tax default and debt stemming back years why would they only persue one of the two and not try and get financial info on BOTH not just one. ?.

2. How and who would distinguish whether these are friends or partners ? Would that be the local authority pre committal or the Magistrates Court at 'committal ' stage ? There must have been many cases where joint liability is alleged but disputed . Presumably committal can only be tried against those who have already a liability order in their own name ( or named with others on the order) Can the LA actually have a right to attend to look at the living circumstances in terms of Council Tax liability as distinguished from when they are assessing a Housing/CT benefit claim ?

3. Have I got this right in thinking that where a person is actually committed to prison ( not suspended on terms) for default that the LA can no longer recover (after the sentence is served) for the period of default for which committal was ordered, though of course they may be released from prison on payment of the amount. ?

[lgfa92]

1) The council can pick which of the liable parties they wish to proceed against if there is more than one. Where there are two (or more) liable parties they are both responsible for the full amount so legislation only allows enforcement action (attachment of earnings etc) against one party at a time in respect of any particular debt,

2) Committal action can only be taken after a liability order has been granted and that individual has been subject to an enforcement agent (and preferably other methods will have been attempted as well). Council Tax liability is not a function the courts that have say in, it is a function of the valuation tribunal service if it is disputed - liability is one of the most common disputes I see and take to tribunal.

3) They likely could not proceed further against the party who they took committal action against - whether or not they could continue action against that party or another liable party has not been fully tested to my knowledge (I've been dealing with council tax cases for well over a decade). The general comments from the higher courts are that a person cannot be subject to further enforcement after a sentence but it is not specifically stated in legislation.

What I suspect you are getting at is that the other person ('B') should be being chased by the council and that they aren't. The council may have determined that 'A' is the only liable party and 'B' is not or they have may decided that 'A' and 'B' are liable but they'll only chase 'A'. If it is the former then trying to get a tribunal to confirm that both parties would be liable makes no real difference, the council can still choose to chase only 'A' - the tribunal (nor the courts) cannot order the council to pursue a specific party for enforcement purposes.