Council tax court summons costs - I'm in the process of challanging them as excessive

[unclebob123]

Hi all,

I am sure there are many more people on these forums who are clued up on the relivant legislation reguarding council tax court summons costs.

From my research it seems they are going against the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, by essentially fineing and profiteering from the summons they issue.

I sent this ititial email to either justify the, what I deemed excesive costs

Dear Lambeth Council,

I write in relation to a recent court summons for failure to pay council tax (summons number – *******). I believe that the court summons costs are excessive and in contravention of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, Section 5.(b)

(5) If, after a summons has been issued in accordance with paragraph (2) but before the application is heard, there is paid or tendered to the authority an amount equal to the aggregate of—

(a)the sum specified in the summons as the sum outstanding or so much of it as remains outstanding (as the case may be); and

(b)a sum of an amount equal to the costs reasonably incurred by the authority in connection with the application up to the time of the payment or tender,

I would therefore ask for a comprehensive itemised breakdown of how you reach the summons costs of £122.00.

I also ask under the Freedom of Information Act that you supply me with information regarding the actual cost to Lambeth Council charged by HMCS in seeking a single court summons in regards to unpaid council tax for the current year if an arrangement to pay is made and a court appearance is not required as a result.

Furthermore I would also ask for Lambeth councils historical court summons costs for the past 10 years and any communications between the courts and Lambeth council to justify the rise in summons costs.

Having brought the account up to date, set up a direct debit to make all future payments and for the reasons laid out in this letter, I would ask that the court summons costs are refunded removed from my account.

I await your response in no later than 20 working days from receipt of this request under section 10 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000

I recieved this response

I am writing with regards to your recent summons enquires, the contents of which have been noted.

Having looked into your account, I can advise that on 5^th September 2014 a demand was sent to you for the financial year 2014/15 detailing six monthly instalments, with an initial payment of £90.25 due on 20^th September 2014 followed by five payments of £91.00 due on the twentieth of every month thereafter.

On 2^nd October 2014 a reminder was issued to advise that you were behind with your instalments and asking you to bring your account up to date by 12^th September 2014.

The reminder dated 2^nd October 2014 clearly states, “No further reminders will be issued – failure to pay will result in legal proceedings” Therefore when your payments due 20^th September 2014 was not received, and you did not contact us to make an arrangement, neither was the full payment received, the final notice was issued on 22^nd October 2014 and your instalments were cancelled.

The Final Notice advised ‘You must now pay the full outstanding balance for this period. Please call us on 0345 302 2312 to check your balance and arrange payment”. ‘After checking our records I can confirm we received no contact from you to arrange payment on your balance owing therefore a summons was issued.

After taking the above information into account, the council tax department have taken the correct steps so the Summons Case 215706 will stand. The Onus is on the occupant of the property to ensure the payments are received on the due date.

With regards to your question of how the court costs are incurred, the amount of court costs is set at a level that pays for the extra administration involved in monitoring unpaid council tax accounts and then taking the debtors to court. In calculating the amount we looked at the costs of the extra services, the number of cases we have to take to court each year and the likelihood of recovering costs from debtors. We presented our calculations to Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court where it was considered by the designated District Judge and Bench Chairman. They gave their approval to the rates of £122 for the issue of a summons and £5 for the issue of a liability order on 19^th January 2009.

I appreciate the fact that you have chosen to pay by direct debit, however as the direct debit was set after the summons had been served, we are unable to remove the legal costs of £122.00 that were incurred in the issue of a summons on 6^th November 2014. and a further £5.00 liability order cost which was granted on 28^th November 2014.
Please note we do not deal with items of correspondence as soon as they are received. Our level of service is ten working days. Therefore your email has been responded within our level service.
I trust this clarifies the situation. If you need any advice or assistance, please ring our Call Centre on the number given below.

There is a Self Service option for Council Tax which enables you to view your balance including your payment history and payments due, set up a direct debit and inform us if you move house. Go to the council's webpage www.lambeth.gov.uk for full details. If you register for Self Service, a PIN will be issued within 3 working days of applying, giving you full access to this option. The login and application page is located at https://revenues.lambeth.gov.uk/publ...rtal.login.htm Please note that if your account has already been closed you will be unable to use this service. In this case call 0345 302 2312 and speak to an advisor, or email counciltax@lambeth.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

I don't want to get into why it took me a couple of months to bring my payments up to speed, but the legality of their costs.

The council tax administration and enforecement regulations stage -

(b)a sum of an amount equal to the costs reasonably incurred by the authority in connection with the application up to the time of the payment or tender,

but this is not the case. It clearly hasnt cost them £122 and they clearly havent taken this on a case by case basis. As they state in their responce everyone is pooled together then a mysterious formula is applied to get what they claim to be the total amount the summons have cost the whole borough then that total is split between everyone who recieves a summons.

How should I reply to this email? I guess I could begin by asking them for a more comprehansive breakdown with actual figures and a freedom of information request for any corrospondance between Lambeth council and the magistrate when they agreed on the £122 cost?

Thanks in advance.

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council tax court summons costs - I'm in the process of challanging them as exces

Hi Bob

Have a look at this post and you'll find links to recorded information regarding court costs (historical) and letters between the council and Magistrates court.

Post #75

[outlawlgo]

Re: Council tax court summons costs - I'm in the process of challanging them as exces

Lambeth factors into its calculation a considerable allowance for costs which are uncollected by using a sum of around 60% lower than the actual summonses issued to determine the individual costs. In doing this, it is obvious that the defendants left actually paying the costs are paying an inflated sum to either compensate for the council erroneously sending out summonses or subsidise the costs of those others having them waived for reasons likely that they agree to the council's favourable terms, for example, switching their method of payment to Direct Debit.

An issue then arises if a defendant asserted his right to challenge the council’s claim on the grounds that the standard costs being applied for in his case included an element that subsidised work which was otherwise unrecoverable. This could be due to costs being waived for the reasons already described, or as is often found, the authority factors in an allowance for bad debt.

In the face of such a challenge, the Court (if it were to follow due process) would require satisfying that the amount claimed by way of costs in his particular case was no more than that reasonably incurred by the authority. On being presented evidence in support of the standard costs being inflated to subsidise bad debt for example, the court would have no justifiable reason to award the standard sum as plainly the standard costs applied were more than that reasonably incurred by the authority in his individual case.

The law cannot have been enacted with the intention of giving billing authorities powers to increase costs in respect of one debtor from whom collection is easy in order to subsidise another's costs whose payment is more difficult to obtain. Neither would the same be intended to entirely fund those defendant’s costs who simply don’t pay them, perhaps because they’re waived for example.