Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

[bob158]

In 2013 I was in receipt of council tax benefits meaning I had zero liabiity, unfortunately the council did not believe that my profits were zero from my business and decided to start a fruad investigation, they found nothing, but the benefit was not reinstated, so I had the full liability to pay. I was hoping that I might be able to pay in future, and as the criminal investigation was so stressful I did not reapply. Unfortunately I could not keep up with payments and despite offering £5 a month, the council started proceedings against me obtaining a liability order. I do not have paid income, am not in receipt of benefits, and refused the bailiffs access to my property. I am existing on credit cards sooner or later the credit facilities will be stopped.

I have asked the council to remit the bill to zero under clause 10 (1) 13A (1) of the Local Government Finance Act 2012 as I have no income, they state they cannot do this unless I apply for benefits, which due to the harrassment and the fact I was accused of a criminal offence I will not do. I have sent them form MC100 showing zero income and send the same form to the magistrates court.

The council have started proceedings for commitment to prison for non payment of council tax approx £2,200. I could not attend the hearing as both were arranged at the same time when I had a business commitment which if I did not perform I would have been in breach of contract with the client. I wrote to the court on both occasions to apologise however the council have now issued an arrest warrant.

I am also concerned that the court will demand that I pay an amount which I cannot pay, the amount I can pay is nothing, when I do not keep with repayments then I will be sent to prison.

Rundles attempted to arrest me on Friday, I was not at home, and when permission to enter the premises was denied they called the police. The police then searched the house.

I thought that the police could not get involved in civil offences, this is just the late payment of a bill not a criminal offence. Can some tell me under what section of what act the police can get involved, and also can you provide any other advice for me. I do not understand this intimidation and harrassment from the council as if I am forced into bankruptcy their debt including all other years would be written off.

[wales01man]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

With respect may I ask if you have Business commitments why have you Zero income?
you would have to check if council tax debts are written off and remenber it costs money to go bankrupt.

[Kati]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

tagging [MENTION=30402]Milo[/MENTION] [MENTION=9189]bizzybob[/MENTION] [MENTION=26498]ploddertom[/MENTION] [MENTION=62334]Snoopy1948[/MENTION]

[bob158]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

There is a difference between income and profits in business although I have income the business is currently not making a profit.

[wales01man]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

If you have an income why not set up a payment plan to avoid arrest then fight the council others will advise what you should do before you are arrested theres a chance you can avoid whats coming

[bob158]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

As I said I cannot afford to pay anything, as I have told the council an sent official forms to confirm

[Crazy council]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

hi

Rundles attempted to arrest me on Friday, I was not at home, and when permission to enter the premises was denied they called the police. The police then searched the house.

I thought that the police could not get involved in civil offences, this is just the late payment of a bill not a criminal offence. Can some tell me under what section of what act the police can get involved, and also can you provide any other advice for me. I do not understand this intimidation and harrassment from the council as if I am forced into bankruptcy their debt including all other years would be written off.

Hi

Email your council head of finance. Send them you bboks and bank records to prove you had no income,

Important bit here. Loads of council do this, say they wont believe you when you provide books, statements. Well, if you provide bath bank record and books, a statment declaring you have no other income, they HAVE to act on that. Its one of the abusive systems council tax deps use, trying to make it impossible to prove, they will tell you to provide all sorts of things, like living expenses ect, all useless really, you just need to proved them a financial statement, ( signed ) then bank records.

Head the letter/email to the head of fiance, ask them to suspend all action whilst he revices the appropreatness of the action.

If your feeling like pushing back a bit. ask them

2. What calculations was used by them to refuse your offer of £ 5 pw
3. How much are the ballifs charging the council to attend your property for arrest

Your question on the people is correct, but it doesn't matter,

[wales01man]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

Fair enough you cannot afford to pay but as I know they will not accept that and want their money I paid a CT bill of over 3plus years at 15 quid a month after all the threats from them they are only interested in payment at the moment to them you are refusing to pay and the must take the action they have.

[bob158]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

Regarding my offer of 3 years ago to pay £5, the letter was ignored by the council, and then they replied telling me that they would not accept any offer of payment without first going through the legal process, (and getting considerable costs awarded to them). On another forum someone said that if a council obtains a liability order when they report their collection rates, normally around 97% they can include these debts subject to the liability order within these statistics. They then obtain funding from central government for having such good collection rates. If they have poor collection rates then the chief executive may be fired and certainly would have to explain why they are so bad. I am going to write to my MP about this to confirm the truth, as I am certain that a lot of people are being harrassed unnecessarily, and being placed further into debt. With enforcement agents fees the amount is over £400 because councils refuse to accept reasonable offers of repayments.

[Crazy council]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

On another forum someone said that if a council obtains a liability order when they report their collection rates, normally around 97% they can include these debts subject to the liability order within these statistics. They then obtain funding from central government for having such good collection rates. If they have poor collection rates then the chief executive may be fired and certainly would have to explain why they are so bad.

100% accurate. Itrs called the successful collection rate, its an Audit marker, and if it drops below a certan rate, the council tax records get full audit.

Write this in the email to the head of finace, offer just to pay your CT, not costs, make an offer of a % of your current free income, send in books and a bank statment for the period, and the current period. Off all the paperwork letters you do for this, it will be the letter to the head of finace that gets stuff done.

[Debt Camel]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

Well you aren't helping yourself here.
You need to apply for benefits to live on - as you say you can't carry on borrowing on credit cards forever.
Of course you should have turned up to court, what part of "committal to prison" did you not understand?
I understand that you probably feel harassed and unfairly treated, but you can't let that get in the way of doing the right things going forward.

You need to go round to your local Citizens Advice and ask for their help with this. With respect to the other Beagles, emailing your council's head of finance is not a suitable way forward unless you can pay the full bill immediately - not when there is an arrest warrant out for you.

[Crazy council]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

You need to go round to your local Citizens Advice and ask for their help with this. With respect to the other Beagles, emailing your council's head of finance is not a suitable way forward unless you can pay the full bill immediately - not when there is an arrest warrant out for you.

#
Agreed they need to deal with the warrent first, , but emailing the head of finance, does do something. Each council,through there constitutions, can design there own complaints systems, and have been doing this to make it to hard to complain, you basically have to make the complaint 3 times to get it through all levels, until the director of fiance has to agree on the response to you. before that stage, the junior officers can say/act how they like. So, when you make the complaint direct to the head of finance, although it does just put you in the complaints systems, they have to agree the first response.

The head of finance, and head of legal, are a LOT easier to get at if they misdirect you.

Your way is the right way [MENTION=48934]Debt Camel[/MENTION] , just pushing it to the head of finance first, just stops them delaying it whilst the member of public trys sort it out.

[bob158]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

[QUOTE=Crazy council;663462]#
Agreed they need to deal with the warrent first, , but emailing the head of finance, does do something.

Thanks [MENTION=60653]crazy[/MENTION]council your replied have been very helpful. Is the head of finance the same as a s151 officer, I cant find a head of finance on the councils management structure

[Crazy council]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

Yes it's the section 151 officer

[Snoopy1948]

Re: Council Tax - Arrest Warrant

Hi bob158 ....

Taking your first posting 'back to basics', there must be some reason why in 2013 you received 100% council tax support ( benefit ) and why your claim was later investigated as fraud. Councils do not make these matters up and there would have had to have been substance to initiate the enquiry i.e. third party information, the benefit assessment officers noticing irregularities or questions that arose through Data Matching.

It's odd that you say 'they found nothing' but failed to reinstate your benefit. The two simply don't concur. I assume that you were called in for interviews under caution? They must have told you the basis of their investigation? They simply cannot 'undo' benefit awards without giving you substantive reasons. And how have you been living off credit cards with income to repay them? You also state that they found you guilty of a criminal offence and yet you say 'they found nothing'. I'd be pretty angry if I was the victim of that.

Also why did you not feel it fit to attend court for this 'committal hearing' when clearly it was of not insubstantial importance?

When I was enforcing local taxation ( initially poll tax, latterly council tax _), we were often instructed by magistrates to execute 'with bail' warrants only and if that produced no appearance at court, the magistrates would pass the case for the police to execute the warrant. At that time, the police were allowed to arrest the offender and keep him in custody until he could appear for the committal hearing. In latter years, the police started to refuse to do this stating that they simply did not have the manpower to do this. Some authorities got around this by passing no bail warrants direct to firms of certificated bailiffs/enforcement agents who would do their best to execute them although such actions had to rely on the good grace and compliance of the offender as I understood they were not able to manhandle the offender in any way.

You mentioned that Rundles were sent to execute and arrest warrant and they called the police who actually entered your property and searched it. I cannot see why the police were called or indeed why they felt it necessary to search your house unless a breach of the peace had occurred. My understanding is that non payment of council tax remains a civil offence but claiming benefit fraudulently is of course a criminal one. IF everything you say is correct, then you have been treated appallingly. But in the same breath, there are many inconsistencies here as well.

You add that 'you may be forced into bankruptcy and as a result the council will not receive anything. From what you are saying, they are not receiving anything anyway. And councils should only petition for a debtors bankruptcy if it is productive for them as remember we are talking about collection of public money.

What would I do if I were you? Certainly not sit around with an arrest warrant pending. Without your compliance this is not going to go away. Bankruptcy will not occur overnight either so you should be speaking to the council about the whole issue and/or at least surrendering to the warrant and debating the whole matter in front of magistrates. IF there are questions that they feel the council should be more accountable for, then they should adjourn the matter to a further hearing. But remember both you and the council have to be totally honest in court ( you will be under oath ) .....