Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Yes the collusion between the councils and the magistrates courts in my opinion is blatent.Ive heard theres pretty much no point in going to your local police about anything like this,at best you will get "its a civil affair ,we dont get involved".I wonder if you got that in writing and showed it if police arrived to back up baillifs whether it would still be "its a civil affair,we dont get involved".Possibly in the very occassional instance but generally it seems the councils,courts and police have for want of a better description a "common purpose"

Hopefully a recent report ("download here") from the Department of Communities and Local Government will have a positive influence on the police in taking a view more in favour of the victim – particularly at paragraph 5.8:

"5.8 The Government consider that any fraudulent practices should be reported to the police as a criminal offence under the Fraud Act and that Local Authorities should terminate any contract with companies whose activities are proved fraudulent.

Just a note of support having suffered at the hands of Great Yarmouth Borough Council . I produced all my receipts to the court proving payment within the rules and still had a liability order issued against me. I have never seen such a blatant miscarriage of justice from such a simple case.

Keep up the fight your followers await your victory.

The same document at paragraph 3.4 may indicate that some pressure is being applied by the government, perhaps meaning local authorities will no longer act with impunity when inventing ludicrously inflated sums that they charge to ratepayers as incurred expenses in conveyor belt style court applications.

Perhaps pointing this out to the bench at the Magistrates' court when your council expect an award of costs upward of £70.

"3.4 Local Authorities are reminded that they are only permitted to charge reasonable costs for the court summons and liability order. In the interests of transparency, Local Authorities should be able to provide a breakdown, on request, showing how these costs are calculated.

[lawful rebel]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Yes the collusion between the councils and the magistrates courts in my opinion is blatent.Ive heard theres pretty much no point in going to your local police about anything like this,at best you will get "its a civil affair ,we dont get involved".I wonder if you got that in writing and showed it if police arrived to back up baillifs whether it would still be "its a civil affair,we dont get involved".Possibly in the very occassional instance but generally it seems the councils,courts and police have for want of a better description a "common purpose"

[charitynjw]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Hi xxx111, & welcome to Legal Beagles.

[xxx111]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Just a note of support having suffered at the hands of Great Yarmouth Borough Council . I produced all my receipts to the court proving payment within the rules and still had a liability order issued against me. I have never seen such a blatant miscarriage of justice from such a simple case.

Keep up the fight your followers await your victory.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Thanks for the post lawful rebel,

Your assumption is not wrong. An initial dispute drew my attentions increasingly to how profiteering was unlawfully being carried out from exploiting council tax legislation. What started out a complaint about several hundred pounds fraudulently demanded from the council's bailiff contractor, Rossendales, led to my focus being channelled towards related matters. When the council blatantly lied its way through the complaint process and abetted the bailiff's attempt to defraud me, I began realising there was wholesale corruption within every organisation I turned to, not least those supposedly put in place to keep a check on councils.

I soon learned that the LGO, police etc., were being used to protect councils, who are not so much interested any longer in its citizen's well being, but in generating income through penalty charges.

As you say, it's not good enough for council's to rely on their get out of jail free cards, i.e., "The court agreed to these costs". Only today I read a FoI response from Hartlepool Council which has used exactly that card.

"....I am therefore unable to assist you any further with your queries regarding the justification for these applications for increases in the costs etc other than to say that costs are awarded by the Court upon application by the Council.

[lawful rebel]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Hello Outlawlgo


Ive been following your threads.I am also stumbling through the Judicial Review process:i had my application for Judicial Review declined at an oral hearing at the Queens Bench(the bundle including my skeleton arguement and FOI responses did not make it to the judge prior to the hearing,despite me handing it in at the Administrative Court Office,and getting a signed reciept within the timescale) the judge not really having the time to study it properly and i must admit it did throw me a bit when they hadnt recieved it.I have now applied for permission to Appeal to the Court of Appeal under those grounds(proceedural irregularity) and the untenable situation that there are probably not many if any council legal reps in the country that can swear under oath in a court of law that the charges they claim as the costs incurred for their mass produced summonses are the costs without facing possible charges for perjury."The court agreed to these costs"is not good enough.
The action is against the local magistrates court which deals with 4 local authorities with a range of fraudulent costs that are rubberstamped at bulk complaint stage,no questions asked in exchange for a "bung" or £3 per summons.
My original gripe was a dispute i had (this has largely naturally resolved itself now and i should be able to resume paying my council tax minus their fraudulent costs)with the local authority could not be heard by the magistrates,as its pretty much a case of "is that your name,is that your address well then you are guilty sir(liable)",and at the second years hearing infont of a district judge i asked for my dispute to be transferred to a higher court where it could be heard and stated i could not accept the juristiction of the court due to its relationship with the Complainant(council) especially with regards the financial arrangements.However as i ,probably like yourself ,saw more and more the sheer immoral unlawfulness of the whole set up this has taken over from my largely now irrelevant dispute with the local authority.
I am claiming that the magistrates court is in multiple breaches of law including,but not necessarily limited to breaches of rules of common law(the rule against bias),taking decisions based on secondary legislation,breaches of rules of natural justice(no one to be condemed unheard-well if the magistrates can only adjudicate on a very restricted set of matters,nobody with any other matter to raise has any chance of being heard),breaches of members of the publics inherent constitutional rights(yes we do have them,not that our criminal establishment likes to recognise the fact)and acting for an improper purpose.
The other week when i went with a friend to his council tax hearing in another part of London involving the infamous Harringay Council,when the council legal rep was asked to state under penalty of perjury that they were the costs incurred by the council,the magistates immediately waived the costs.
Good Luck

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Please be mindful of councils' attempts of pulling the wool over ours and Magistrates' courts eyes with bogus breakdowns of court costs.

A FoI request to West Somerset District Council provides a useful insight into how – when compared with Portsmouth (see previous post) – varying sized local authorities breakdown summons costs.

One of the biggest factors determining the summons cost for each individual is the number of defendants the council's incurred costs must be split. The process is automated so any correspondence the defendant receives in connection with the authority's application to the Magistrates' court will have been generated entirely as a consequence of parameters set on the council tax software package. The only obvious costs varying with application numbers are postage, stationary and the fee paid (£3) to the court. Automation increases "profit potential" significantly with the number of applications, unless of course the individual charge is compensated to ensure income generated doesn't exceed expenditure.

A breakdown of costs by Portsmouth (see previous post) and West Somerset Councils when compared revealed both were formulated similarly but the likeness ended there. The significant difference between the two councils is Portsmouth has nearly seven times the population in its control than West Somerset. You would expect the percentage of budgets attributed to incurred expenditure would be the same for different size councils, after all we're dealing with proportions here, not monetary figures.

Comparing both councils, the smaller one, West Somerset (for Ctax and Business rates) attributes 18.75% of employee and budgets for support services to summons costs. Portsmouth, on a similar basis claims the figure is 37.3% (33.3% Ctax 4% Business rates). For scaled-up operations then, there's an apparent need to disproportionately gear up the percentage attributable to incurred costs. Creativity is used not only in dividing budgets, there's further evidence that allowances made for bad debt are also a tool used to force a desired outcome. More profitable Portsmouth council has to reduce an already fiddled number of summonses by 30%, so that the fake incurred costs, when split between the made-up figure would turn out a high enough figure for its standard costs. On the other hand, West Somerset with a fraction of the number of summonses has less of a problem. An adjustment of 5% is all it needs to fine tune the calculation to achieve its standard costs.

The more scaled up the operation the more it seems councils are required to be creative in their breakdowns if the illusion is wanted they're not profiting obscenely from debt recovery. More studies would likely uncover that the size of the authority majorly influences the degree to which profits need disguising. Where a breakdown is provided, it'd be a safe bet that a procedure exists employing the principles of "reverse calculation" where the sum is established, after which, invented determining factors are varied to fool the Magistrates court into believing the sum is justified.

[three rivers of corruption]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Good to see the judicial review is progressing.
£3 per summons so how can they justify charging you £70.
Keep up the good work.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

A request for information throws a little light on how the costs are made-up....

Portsmouth City Council were asked for a breakdown of administration expenditure in connection with summonses and liability orders in the pursuit of Council Tax recovery.

After fobbing this off several times they were persuaded to cobble some basic costs together, but earlier had stated there was no requirement to have a breakdown, the costs have only to be reasonable and the court had never raised any concerns over the amount being charged.

The council provided a spreadsheet: Justification of summons costs

The intention to deceive was immediately evident. Even dismissing the unrealistic costs of a third of its overall budget attributed to general administration (more if allowing business rate costs), the costs could be halved. But worth asking, is it really reasonable to include Accommodation, Human Resources, Finance, IT, Media and Procurement as part of the incurred costs for issuing the summons?

For its calculation (Council Tax) it attributed £42,000 to fees paid to the Magistrates' court (£3 per item) which accounts for 14,000 summonses. This is accountancy at its most creative when according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the number averages out at 10,786 from data obtained over the two previous years. So here alone, it's reasonable to say Portsmouth Council have invented nearly £10k to add to its costs which it will charge to its residents.

I can only assume Portsmouth Council didn't expect anyone to scrutinise its estimate, otherwise they wouldn't have used a figure of 14,000 (summons) to hike its apparent expenditure, whilst using a drastically reduced figure (9,500 summons) to split the costs for the purposes of determining the charge per defendant.

The Council had yet more front, it continued to reduce this figure by 30% (6,650) so its inflated, made-up costs had in theory to be split between even fewer householders, thus increasing the charge per individual.

It seems the council, by fiddling this 30% adjustment, was admitting its incompetence as a tax collector, as this data was falsified to make allowances for bad debts. However, the council simply disagreed when it was expressed that in effect it was adding an amount to those who do pay, to compensate for those who don't.

With these obvious corrections alone, Portsmouth City Council's estimate of £81 for each Council Tax summons was brought down to £49. This was achieved without even looking at the other dubious £0.5 million.

Guidance to local councils on good practice in the collection of Council Tax arrears

Things might be changing, as far as getting more transparency over these issues. Secretary of state for the Department of Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, is having his say on these matters.

Download a copy of his report here

Of particular relevance is Paragraph 3.4 of the report:

3.4 Local Authorities are reminded that they are only permitted to charge reasonable costs for the court summons and liability order. In the interests of transparency, Local Authorities should be able to provide a breakdown, on request, showing how these costs are calculated.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Must have done something right. The second application (first one rejected) for Judicial Review has been returned by the administrative court office with all copies sealed with instructions to proceed to next stage (17 June 2013).

Within 7 days of the seal date (12 June) all documents must be served on the defendant and interested parties in accordance with Civil Procedure Rules Part 54, Rule 54.7 (Service of claim form)

A certificate of service (Form N215) has been filed with the administrative court with particulars about the claim including how, where and when documents were served. As they were served personally before 4.30pm, they were deemed served on that day (June 18) CPR Part 6 Rule 6.26 (Deemed Service)

In accordance with Rule 54.8 (Acknowledgment of service) any person served with the claim form who wishes to take part in the judicial review must file an acknowledgment of service in the relevant practice form in accordance with the following provisions of this rule.

Any acknowledgment of service (Form N462) must be filed not more than 21 days after service of the claim form and served on the claimant and any other person named in the claim form.

There is however the recurring problem with uncooperative staff at Doncaster Magistrates' court – the cause of this fiasco that has dragged on since the end of last year. Because nobody holds the position of Clerk to the justices at Grimsby's Magistrates' Court, the Clerk at Doncaster has supposedly been acting on behalf of Grimsby.

Again, no response to an email sent on 19 June to Doncaster Magistrates' Court.....

.....The claim form and accompanying documents have also been delivered in person at the premises of Grimsby Magistrates' court and North East Lincolnshire Council (18/06/2013).

I need to lodge a Certificate of Service (Form N215) in the Administrative Court Office and will be doing so today. Due to the unusual staffing arrangements for Grimsby, I'm unsure whether the Certificate of Service should be lodged in respect of documents served at Grimsby Magistrates' court or Doncaster. I anticipate this information may not be disclosed, and will lodge the Certificate of Service in respect of documents served at Grimsby Magistrates' court unless I receive advice before 3:00pm.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Hey Outlaw i dont think there's much doubt about how corrupt these councils are.
A few posts earlier you were wondering how they intended to enforce collection of your outstanding £ costs. The answer is by underhand unscupulous harassment.
Make sure any current year payments you make use the payment book counterfoils , otherwise they are likely to credit the payment against outstanding historical debt (ie your costs) and then summons you for non payment again.
Hope you can progress your costs dispute.

Thanks for the advice. What you describe is roughly what happened, however, I managed to get all that sorted with a couple of letters (I won't post here). Ancient case law still seems relevant today which formed the basis of my argumet for the misallocated funds.

".....I doubt this has been a deliberate act for the purpose of generating extra summons revenue, but if it transpires it has been engineered to cause default, I will not hesitate escalating this to the Local Government Ombudsman. In the more likely case this glitch has occurred as a consequence of its Council Tax software package, I request the misallocated funds are reallocated to this year's account thereby offsetting my 2012-13 liability. If the department deems this to be outside its powers, I ask that the judgment of "Peter v Anderson" is sought.

A person who is indebted to another on two several accounts, may, on paying him money, ascribe it to which account he pleases.–and his election may either be expressed,-Or may be inferred from the circumstances of the transaction.

The Internal Audit Report expands on the allocation methods.

3.3.1 The collection and reporting of Council Tax income is straightforward when a tax payer pays their annual charge within that year. Complexities arise when a Council Tax Payer falls into arrears and owes the council money for past years as well as the current year. There is significant case law (for example, Peter v Anderson (1814)) however, put simply, if a person specifies which years debt the payment should be assigned it should be assigned to that years debt.

3.3.2 The council tax system has built in allocation rules to ensure that the law with respect to specified payments is met. For instance, if a customer has a payment plan for any year of debt and the payment they make matches the planned instalment then the money will be allocated to that year (this is known as “hard” allocation on the council tax system). If the system is unable to “hard allocate” then it will instead “soft” allocate and the debt will be used against the oldest debt unless manually adjusted.

[three rivers of corruption]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

I have to post this as a warning to anyone who might happen to be in any doubt as to the level of crookedness of those in our town halls.

Despite having already paid this month's Council Tax instalment, I've received a computer generated letter from the council today, threatening summons costs of £70, instalment facility withdrawal and demand for immediate payment for the entire Council Tax liability if their demands were not met.

This has happened, presumably because disputed costs have been carried forward to this year's account, but because no resolution has been reached, were not included in my payment. It seems there's no depths to which these vultures will not sink in their pursuit to catch out as many charge payers as possible with their bogus court costs.

In addition to the extra £millions generated through these costs, one wonders how much extra interest is earned for the council by demanding early payment through withdrawing instalment facilities.

Hey Outlaw i dont think there's much doubt about how corrupt these councils are.
A few posts earlier you were wondering how they intended to enforce collection of your outstanding £ costs. The answer is by underhand unscupulous harassment.
Make sure any current year payments you make use the payment book counterfoils , otherwise they are likely to credit the payment against outstanding historical debt (ie your costs) and then summons you for non payment again.
Hope you can progress your costs dispute.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Thanks A54!

I'm convinced though, if I re-send the application you can guarantee they'll find some other reason to reject it if that's what they've decided.

This has been going on for that long the original application to state a case is getting way out of date. There are a number of points I would have added, but I suppose if this ever gets past the application stage there's plenty of opportunity to add further to the evidence.

One point, which might seem trivial, is contrary to what councils would have you believe, CTAX recovery doesn't necessarily always incur expenditure for local authorities, however, they only ever focus on this aspect. Where recovery has forced payments earlier than would ordinarily have been made, councils are in fact benefiting from interest on the capital, which should be accounted for and offset against incurred costs.

We’re told problem payers adversely affect cash-flow for local authorities and increase costs through lost interest. There is even an example where a local authority factored in the interest lost as an element of incurred costs to be reclaimed in the summons charged to defendants. Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council calculated that £62,500 of the total annual incurred costs (44%) was attributable to interest. This came a close second to the wages bill which was calculated at £68,960 (48%).

How this figure came about and the factors governing the calculation are unknown, but wonder if monies obtained from debtors forced to make earlier payments were factored in. Rather than an incurred cost, it could be the opposite was true. The interest element brought about by issuing summonses may represent a benefit to local authorities rather than a loss incurred in the recovery process.

In my particular case, I paid the CTAX liability as soon as I received the summons (plus a reasonable amount of costs), and because the instalment facility had been withdrawn this was a lump sum which the council would gain interest from sooner and benefiting the department from a cash-flow point of view. The process was entirely automated in my particular circumstances and the additional £10 I paid as an estimate of reasonable costs, would have been far greater than the incurred cost to the council, especially as the authority had benefited from my "early" lump sum payment. It could be that the council, in fact, owe the costs to me, as the interest probably outweighed the small amount of postage and stationary needed to process my summons.

There has also been an interesting admission from Leicestershire Magistrates' court and several other sources that these associations, quangos or whatever you like to call them, have no more legal authority in setting summons/liability order costs than a group of friends in a pub. There are also different versions – depending on who's offering the information – in regards who agrees/approves the level, i.e., the Magistrates' court of the local authority. This of course is merely academic, as if what some sources tell us is true, it's for the bench to determine at the court hearing.

[A54]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

Outlawlgo

Keep your head up, it was never going to be easy or straight forward but you've done a brilliant job so far and have probably taken the issues further than anyone before.

My advice would be to play the game, put in an application for an extension of time to lodge your application and give them copies of your bank statements for last 3 months with the EX160. If you get refused again, I got something else you can try that would be very difficult for them to ignore.

Keep a diary of everything you've done in an easy to read format, you never know when this could come in handy.

Well done for getting this far.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council Tax Liability Order Applications Court Costs – Test Case

The obstruction continues, this time from the Administrative Court Office at Leeds. The 60 or so pages I'd posted on 31 May making up the application for Judicial Review arrived back on my doormat today.

They'd returned the application because it was lodged out of time and they could not approve the fee remission.

I purposely stated in the application under SECTION 3 (the decision date to be judicially reviewed) "No response from Magistrates' court" and to see section 9, where I'd outlined the cause. However, they elected the Court’s letter dated 24 January 2013 as the decision I was challenging, meaning the 3 months time limit to lodge the application should have been done by 24 April 2013.

The fee remission application (EX160) had been submitted, accompanied with proof of income which was solely bank interest, so consequently a certificate of interest for 2012-13 was all the proof I could send.

I've experienced enough to conclude that the justice system is crooked throughout. There's no apparent limit to the lengths they'll go to obstruct justice if it serves to protect the stolen £millions each year. Civil litigation is set up so it's like entering a casino for the average member of the public, so perhaps it might be better concentrating on pursuing this fraud through the Criminal route.

High Court Admin reply

HM Courts & Tribunals Service

Administrative Court Office at Leeds
Leeds Combined Court
1 Oxford Row
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS1 3BG

04 June 2013

Dear Sir

Re: Application for Judicial Review

Thank you for your application for permission to apply for Judicial Review received in this office on 3 June 2013.

You application has been returned as it cannot be issued for the following reason(s):

• As your application has been lodged out of time beyond the time period set out in the Civil Procedure Rules (see CPR 54.5 – promptly; and in any event not later than 3 months after the grounds to make the claim first arose) it will be necessary for you to make an application seeking an extension of time to lodge your application. This application must be made in section 8 of the claim form setting out the reasons in support of your application. It seems that you are challenging the Court’s letter dated 24 January 2013, therefore this should have been filed by 24 April 2013.

• Your fee remission cannot be approved yet as the court requires more evidence to prove your entitlement. Page 8 of the guidance booklet "Court Fees – Do I have to pay them?” explains exactly what evidence is required by the court when applying under remission 2 or 3.

Please attend to the above matters before returning your application and accompanying documents which we have enclosed with this letter. Please note, we have not retained any copies of your documents, so you will need to re-submit your entire application. I am very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Yours sincerely,


Miss G Downing
For Court Manager