Council tax arrears over 10 years old

[Guest]

Hi all. I've recieved a letter from my local council stating I owe council tax arrears and an arrest warrant will be issued if I don't get in contact within 14 days.*

Now the property it is related to I haven't lived there since Aug 2005. Since then I have been registered at 2 other addresses which i paid council tax for. I've been at my current address for just over 10 years and all these properties are within the same council. So it's not as though I've been hard to find. I've even been dealing with the same council in regards to my extension on the house!

Where do i stand. I've recieved no other letters or warrants from them. There is nothing on my credit files in regards to a ccj.*

Am I still liable, will I be arrested. There is no contact number on the letter only an email address for their department .So do I send them an email asking for proof of this debt. As its 14 years old is it staute barred?

An advise is appreciated*





*

[lgfa92]

There will be no CCJ, council uses a liability order from the magistrates' court, which is a different process and not recorded on a credit record.

The arrest warrant suggests that committal action had been taken, this means the debt has got to a very serious position and they are intending on applying for a committal to prison for non-payment. In most cases this committal, if a person is found guilty, is suspended for payment however it's not always the case.To apply for committal there has to be a liability order. Once a liability order is granted then the debt, In England, never becomes statue barred for collection purposes.

If the council have had your forwarding address and knew it was you then you may have a defence against the action, but it would require a full look at the position to determine.(simply being in the same area does not by itself confirm it's you)

In real the issue is determining whether or not there is an actual liability - this is not always straightforward and can be quite technical, especially where it's an amount that is backdated for over a decade. The main point here is to try and intervene before they apply for the committal hearing (which is where an arrest warrant can be issued).

[luxardo]

"The arrest warrant suggests that committal action had been taken, this means the debt has got to a very serious position and they are intending on applying for a committal to prison for non-payment:

I don't agree. I bet the wording is something like "non payment of council tax can lead to an arrest warrant being issued" or some other idle threat.
This letter is just a demand for payment as they have traced the address due to discovering the name and date of birth from some source. They can't send letters out just knowing a name and address (how many John Smiths in the UK) they need the date of birth to fully identify. They usually get this from other applications, usually benefits.

If you owe the money phone them and work something out. You can get the number for the council tax dept from their own website. Or you can ignore it and let them take further action, which may be committal action or they may do nothing.

[lgfa92]

Having worked in council tax for nearly two decades it is rare for warrants to even be mentioned at all. They are very uncommon so the mention of them typically indicates that the council are seriously considering it. An arrest warrant can only be issued by the court after an application for* committal has been made but the council can certainly ask the court to issue one. I've known of plenty of cases where the threat has been ignored and the next step is the person being picked up under a warrant. In other words, take it seriously until you know otherwise.

There's no requirement to need a date if birth to confirm who a person is for council tax purposes - a date of birth is useful to link addresses, but there's no specific need for it. For some aspects of council tax simply addressing it to 'The occupier' is entirely legal. Whether or not the council could have, and should have, linked them together is something that needs looking at.

[luxardo]

My comments were made from personal experience not opinion. My local council sent me a letter with the idle threat of arrest without obtaining warrant first so I know it happens. I know they don't need a date of birth to send a bill to an address, I'm talking about them tracing debtors who have moved house and left council tax bills behind.