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After over 20 years in a well paid job life took a turn at the end of 2010 leaving me an unemployed lone parent with 3 children on a steep learning curve with our benefits system. I was on income-based JSA which is a passported benefit for full council tax benefit. Outside of my full time job I do a bit of (paid) sports coaching which I declared to both the DWP and my local council. Then I took a job which was 10 hours a week but paid in excess of my benefits so I continued to sign on every 2 weeks but received no money, however my 3 children still got free school meals and there were other things like exemption from NHS charges so it was worth the fortnightly trip to the Jobcentre.
Unfortunately my local council completely messed up at this point as they decided that I had signed off, which I hadn't, and they started to means test me for Council Tax Benefit (2012-2013 tax year). They wrote to me asking for details of my job and payslips 'now that I was no longer claiming JSA(IB)'. I supplied what they asked for along with a letter from me telling them that I had not signed off and remained on JSA(IB). Throughout this time I must have received over a dozen different bills from them for my Council Tax that year, all for different amounts and some with the same date but different amounts. Confused? I was and my trade is as an accountant so I should be better placed than many to have got it resolved. Just before Christmas last year they issued one of their 'Court Summons' for £739.61 plus court costs of £104 total £843.61 which led to me spending way too much time reading the legislation and on the phone to them. They tried to fob me off by saying that I had to be in receipt of 50p a week in JSA(IB) to have CTB fully passported. Naturally I politely asked them to point me to the relevant section of legislation that provided for this which they weren't able to do, they just told me that 'everyone in their office knew about the 50p rule'. My response to this was whilst I appreciated what they were saying, they were demanding the best part of £1000 from me on the basis of office hearsay (incidentally my understanding is that the 50p rule will apply to people in receipt of Universal Credit). Having agreed to differ and resigned myself to attending court the following day they called me back to say that they'd double checked and I was correct. At the end of that conversation I had been told that they would withdraw my file from court proceedings, remove the court fee from my account with them and actually issue me with a bill that was correct. The person I spoke to also admitted that they hadn't known how to deal with my file as they had never encountered someone with my circumstances before. To make matters worse I received a further bill from them the day before the court hearing for a different amount so I didn't even know exactly how much they were expecting me to pay them.
Three months later I received another bill which had yet again means tested me and still showed the court fees which I believe were £104 plus another £25 presumably for the liability order which hadn't been removed as promised. This was the first I knew that they had gone ahead in my absence in December despite assuring me that they had made errors and were rectifying them. This bill also lacked my single person discount so apparently now I was living with someone!!
Phone call to council, my CTB claim had been closed. No reason provided. They couldn't explain why the single person discount had disappeared. They denied promising to remove the court fees and point blank refused to remove them despite them being due to their errors. I was asked to complete a new CTB claim form which I reluctantly agreed to do and it was submitted with extensive additional notes written on it stating very clearly that 01/04/2012 to 10/09/2012 I was on JSA(IB) and therefore CTB was 100% passported, the next four weeks was also 100% as a run-on and only after this should I be means tested.
Then I received a liability order notice from Chandlers which prompted another phone call to the council who told me my case had gone to appeal. I had been unaware of this. They agreed to contact the bailiff to hold them off for a month whilst the appeal went through, although they couldn't guarantee it would be decided within this timeframe.
I then received a letter informing me that whatever it was I had been appealing had been found in my favour and was accompanied by three bills covering separate financial years which were still wrong! This time they had calculated my CTB before applying the single person discount so I was now in credit by several hundred pounds with the council.
Chandlers then sent a letter demanding £86.51 from me - I have no idea what this is for. I emailed them copies of the latest bills from the council showing that the council owed me money and they just said they only took instructions from the council. They then turned up on my doorstep at 7am one morning when I had popped out and left a letter for me with my children who were getting ready for school. That letter is a farce, the date of the liability order is July 2012 (my court date was December 2012), and it states the amount owing is £718.96 plus £79.50 statutory costs making a total due of £141.51 - someone can't add up! There are handwritten corrections on the letter, the statutory fee printed was £42.50 but this had been crossed out and the £79.50 written in, and the total of £141.51 was handwritten next to a crossed out printed figure of £104.51 (so even on the original the maths was dodgy).
I've just got back from a weekend away to find another letter shoved through my letterbox which is a Notice of Bailiffs attendance and the amount they want from me is £104.51 which is the amount they crossed out on their previous letter.
I've had enough of this ridiculous situation. I am paying my current council tax direct to the council and they are allocating it against this year's bill. I get the new Council Tax Support and they've just about calculated this correctly. The problems are with a 6 month period where they continually fail to sort their billing system out where I got 100% CTB. They have admitted and agreed that they made errors yet won't remove their court costs and tell Chandlers to stop knocking at my door.
Advice will be very welcome as I am utterly bewildered at how this has dragged on and the errors have increased in number instead of being rectified.
Unfortunately my local council completely messed up at this point as they decided that I had signed off, which I hadn't, and they started to means test me for Council Tax Benefit (2012-2013 tax year). They wrote to me asking for details of my job and payslips 'now that I was no longer claiming JSA(IB)'. I supplied what they asked for along with a letter from me telling them that I had not signed off and remained on JSA(IB). Throughout this time I must have received over a dozen different bills from them for my Council Tax that year, all for different amounts and some with the same date but different amounts. Confused? I was and my trade is as an accountant so I should be better placed than many to have got it resolved. Just before Christmas last year they issued one of their 'Court Summons' for £739.61 plus court costs of £104 total £843.61 which led to me spending way too much time reading the legislation and on the phone to them. They tried to fob me off by saying that I had to be in receipt of 50p a week in JSA(IB) to have CTB fully passported. Naturally I politely asked them to point me to the relevant section of legislation that provided for this which they weren't able to do, they just told me that 'everyone in their office knew about the 50p rule'. My response to this was whilst I appreciated what they were saying, they were demanding the best part of £1000 from me on the basis of office hearsay (incidentally my understanding is that the 50p rule will apply to people in receipt of Universal Credit). Having agreed to differ and resigned myself to attending court the following day they called me back to say that they'd double checked and I was correct. At the end of that conversation I had been told that they would withdraw my file from court proceedings, remove the court fee from my account with them and actually issue me with a bill that was correct. The person I spoke to also admitted that they hadn't known how to deal with my file as they had never encountered someone with my circumstances before. To make matters worse I received a further bill from them the day before the court hearing for a different amount so I didn't even know exactly how much they were expecting me to pay them.
Three months later I received another bill which had yet again means tested me and still showed the court fees which I believe were £104 plus another £25 presumably for the liability order which hadn't been removed as promised. This was the first I knew that they had gone ahead in my absence in December despite assuring me that they had made errors and were rectifying them. This bill also lacked my single person discount so apparently now I was living with someone!!
Phone call to council, my CTB claim had been closed. No reason provided. They couldn't explain why the single person discount had disappeared. They denied promising to remove the court fees and point blank refused to remove them despite them being due to their errors. I was asked to complete a new CTB claim form which I reluctantly agreed to do and it was submitted with extensive additional notes written on it stating very clearly that 01/04/2012 to 10/09/2012 I was on JSA(IB) and therefore CTB was 100% passported, the next four weeks was also 100% as a run-on and only after this should I be means tested.
Then I received a liability order notice from Chandlers which prompted another phone call to the council who told me my case had gone to appeal. I had been unaware of this. They agreed to contact the bailiff to hold them off for a month whilst the appeal went through, although they couldn't guarantee it would be decided within this timeframe.
I then received a letter informing me that whatever it was I had been appealing had been found in my favour and was accompanied by three bills covering separate financial years which were still wrong! This time they had calculated my CTB before applying the single person discount so I was now in credit by several hundred pounds with the council.
Chandlers then sent a letter demanding £86.51 from me - I have no idea what this is for. I emailed them copies of the latest bills from the council showing that the council owed me money and they just said they only took instructions from the council. They then turned up on my doorstep at 7am one morning when I had popped out and left a letter for me with my children who were getting ready for school. That letter is a farce, the date of the liability order is July 2012 (my court date was December 2012), and it states the amount owing is £718.96 plus £79.50 statutory costs making a total due of £141.51 - someone can't add up! There are handwritten corrections on the letter, the statutory fee printed was £42.50 but this had been crossed out and the £79.50 written in, and the total of £141.51 was handwritten next to a crossed out printed figure of £104.51 (so even on the original the maths was dodgy).
I've just got back from a weekend away to find another letter shoved through my letterbox which is a Notice of Bailiffs attendance and the amount they want from me is £104.51 which is the amount they crossed out on their previous letter.
I've had enough of this ridiculous situation. I am paying my current council tax direct to the council and they are allocating it against this year's bill. I get the new Council Tax Support and they've just about calculated this correctly. The problems are with a 6 month period where they continually fail to sort their billing system out where I got 100% CTB. They have admitted and agreed that they made errors yet won't remove their court costs and tell Chandlers to stop knocking at my door.
Advice will be very welcome as I am utterly bewildered at how this has dragged on and the errors have increased in number instead of being rectified.
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