Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

[IanM]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

I went to one of these liability order hearings. The first two or three posts might give you a bit of an insight....

Liability order hearing at Grimsby Magistrates' court

I've been thinking about this and have been looking at a copy of a summons for non-payment and a couple of things stand out that makes me seriously wonder about the legality of the summons and the LO's obtained in this way.

The summons itself is has a Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council heading and address, surely if it was issued by the magistrates court it would bear the heading of the magistrates court?

The summons says, You are summonsed to 'APPEAR' before East Lancashire Magistrates Court, sitting at the Blackburn ,Darwen & Ribble Valley, (div 2012), court house, northgate, Blackburn on --/--/-- at ---pm etc., that says to me that as the court has ordered you to 'appear' then again surely if you attended court as ordered then you would expect to 'appear' before an actual magistrate not a council employee?

The summons is signed for the Justices' Clerk by a 'squiggle' identified as Deputy Justices Clerk, so as well as hiring a room in the magistrates court to process the LO's, are they able to also buy the honor of being sworn in as a Deputy Justices Clerk so they can sign off their own orders without a hearing?

Also take into account the 1st line in Rossendales Instruction Sheet which states, "Under a liability order which has been issued 'IN' a magistrates court.........surely that should say "issued BY a magistrate"?

Something seriously stinks about the way all this is done, what is the point of having law, and rules & regulations if they can be so easily broken?

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

This is quoted from Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council:

Stockport Council, as the billing authority, makes complaints to the Clerk to the Justices by taking to the Court a list of all persons against whom we wish to apply to the Court for a Liability Order and relevant information. Please note this is not a step that is taken lightly and only occurs when chargepayers have failed to pay in line with their bill and reminder or final notices sent to them.

If the Clerk to the Justices agrees that the complaint is valid, they sign a statement to confirm that they authorise the issuing of the summonses in respect of all persons on the complaint list. The billing authority then produces and serves the court summonses on behalf of the court. It can be seen that this means the Local Authority is carrying out an administrative role whilst the Court is exercising their judicial function.

This is necessary as the Courts do not have the facilities or resources to carry out the administrative functions related to ensuring that these documents are produced and served correctly. Also as it is the Local Authority that is seeking further recovery it is reasonable that it, not the Court, bears the costs of this function.

OK, so we now know that councils bend the truth by this statement:

"Please note this is not a step that is taken lightly and only occurs when chargepayers have failed to pay in line with their bill and reminder or final notices sent to them."

I agree this is not "a step that is taken lightly", nor a step taken by any council employee. In fact no decisions are made by council employees, it is merely the soul-less output from a computer system, which has met the criteria to automatically generate 'en masse' the data required for the council's court enforcement manager to provide evidence for the court and to subsequently collect its winnings.

The following Liability orders were granted by the Magistrates' court on behalf of Stockport Borough Council for a three year period commencing 2008:


• 10 Liability Orders issued for debt less than £1

• 18 for debt less than £5

• 29 for debt less than £10

• 239 for debt less than £60

• 963 for debt less than £100


This is despite the council stating that "Summons are not issued on accounts where the outstanding balance is less than the summons costs. £69.00 for 2011/12". As you can see from the above figures, there have in fact been a considerable number of Liability Orders granted for debts less than £69.

The following statement suggests that the liability order applications are carried out in such volumes that they cannot be monitored properly:

"This is necessary as the Courts do not have the facilities or resources to carry out the administrative functions related to ensuring that these documents are produced and served correctly."

I doubt, with almost 100% certainty that the information laid before the Clerk to the Justices is mindfully considered.

There is case law between "Regina v. Brentford Justices, Ex parte Catlin" which is in my opinion cause to believe that issuing these Summonses 'en masse' would amount to very serious maladministration. See the following:

Lord Widgery's comments:

"....It must however be remembered that before a summons or warrant is issued the information must be laid before a magistrate and he must go through the judicial exercise of deciding whether a summons or warrant ought to be issued or not. If a magistrate authorises the issue of a summons without having applied his mind to the information then he is guilty of dereliction of duty and if in any particular justices' clerk's office a practice goes on of summonses being issued without information being laid before the magistrate at all, then a very serious instance of maladministration arises which should have the attention of the authorities without delay...."

"A decision by magistrates whether to issue a summons pursuant to information laid involves the exercise of a judicial function, and is not merely administrative."

Given that the number of these summonses run into several hundred or even thousands at any given hearing, and that the council send out their own, I'd say it was more than reasonable to suspect very serious instances of maladministration as those mentioned above.

[IanM]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

Lord Widgery's comments:

"....It must however be remembered that before a summons or warrant is issued the information must be laid before a magistrate and he must go through the judicial exercise of deciding whether a summons or warrant ought to be issued or not. If a magistrate authorises the issue of a summons without having applied his mind to the information then he is guilty of dereliction of duty and if in any particular justices' clerk's office a practice goes on of summonses being issued without information being laid before the magistrate at all, then a very serious instance of maladministration arises which should have the attention of the authorities without delay...."

"A decision by magistrates whether to issue a summons pursuant to information laid involves the exercise of a judicial function, and is not merely administrative."

This part of your letter may have opened up a whole new way of dealing with the council and their bailiffs. I am going to think long and hard about this and see if i can come up with a way of challenging the legality of a LO when issued in relation to CT.

There is another way of causing the council a massive headache, if everyone that receives a summons turns up in court on the day and demands their right to 'APPEAR' before the magistrate, that way they can ask the judge to make an AEO to their employer, therefore avoiding all the hassles of the bailiffs. That would certainly put a dent in the pockets of the bailiffs, it would take some organizing though to get people to turn up!

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

I don't know how you could manage to get everyone to turn up in court on the day but that would definitely do the trick.

The one I attended in June of last year potentially could have had 3,361 banging on the door of the courtroom as this is the number of Summonses the council sent out for the very same council tax liability order hearing.

If everyone turned up for that hearing it would need Magistrates working around the clock in shifts and would take them 70 days to get through the lot if each defendant was allocated half an hour courtroom time a piece.

[bluebottle]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

I don't know how you could manage to get everyone to turn up in court on the day but that would definitely do the trick.

The one I attended in June of last year potentially could have had 3,361 banging on the door of the courtroom as this is the number of Summonses the council sent out for the very same council tax liability order hearing.

If everyone turned up for that hearing it would need Magistrates working around the clock in shifts and would take them 70 days to get through the lot if each defendant was allocated half an hour courtroom time a piece.

That may well be the way to knock this on the head. Once local authorities realise their laziness and dubious ways are being challenged, things will start to change. However, it does need people to break the apathy of the last 30 years and start standing up to local authorities in order for change to come about.

[IanM]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

I've been thinking!

Has anyone on here actually obtained their complete CT file by way of a SAR?

If you have, can you please check through it and see if you can find an application to the magistrates for a summons to be issued.

Please let me know if you can find one or if you can't.

Thanks.

[jalika]

Re: Council Tax dispute and multiple accounts!

Ian M,
I had the same problem only I had not moved house my records got mixed up with some one from Harrogate which was due to an error on the councils and dwp's fault I contacted the DWP who confirmed this and wrote to the council who still would not alter the records because they wanted to charge me.
I wrote to my MP and complained who kindly wrote back to me asking for all the details, it soon got sorted sharply I can tell you.
My records were clear and now I have no more trouble with it, good luck with a swift result.
J.