Has anyone had their council tax rebate yet?

[jowly]

Ours has gone out of the bank as usual.. would be nice if some of it came back

@Unforgettablefire

I’m lost I thought it was a reduction in the bill? I got my bill for the next year and it had -£150 it’s already been taken off my bill by the looks of it

We've been told it's going to be a credit into the bank account.

We get it as a payment later in April or May. I don’t want it as a reduction on the bill as we move house soon and to a different council so don’t want to lose out. The £150 will go in our “emergency account” and get used up on a crisis rather quickly I expect.

Does everyone get one?

@sophienelisse

Does everyone get one?

Anyone who is council tax band a-d and you need to be paying dd or you have to apply another way ,

Ours just came off the bill monthly

Ours hasn't stated it's come off the bill unless it's extremely fine print. However, it has only gone up by £5 a month so I wouldn't be surprised. West Northamptonshire, which is a brand new council that appeared when south Northamptonshire and another council became one!

I'm shocked they're allowed to do that as it's supposed to be off all bills not just that bill.

Ours are 'going to start paying it in April and throughout the year'.How efficient

I feel sorry for Councils. It's all very well for the Government to drop this on them but it's a huge undertaking and must be a logistical nightmare.

It's reminiscent of when Bounce Back Loans were announced. Government dropped it on banks with very little notice and massively underestimated how many would apply...then people bitched relentlessly about xyz bank not providing their loan in the ridiculously short timescale the Gov had announced.

Yes, it would be much simpler to just reduce everyone's bill by £150 however the government don't want us to do this unless someone specifically asks. I think they don't want the council to get the credit for the payment and think if it's a separate payment people will thank the government.

I think when it was announced in February the government seriously thought we could just whizz out hundreds of thousands of payments to be in bank accounts well in advance of the May local elections thus taking the heat off the government's pathetic response to the rise in utility bills etc. What they failed to grasp is that systems designed to collect thousands of payments are not geared up to work in reverse hence the need for costly software changes.

It's all politics.

Council tax has got naff all to do with gas and electricity anyway. The whole thing is stupid. They can't even argue that it's to target money at low income households because council tax is a regressive tax ie it has nothing to do with income. If they really wanted to help with energy costs they could keep the cap as it is and get the money from the energy companies instead of just letting them "buy" and "sell" to each others' subsidiaries at whatever "price" they please. Instead we have to go through this farce to get a pittance that for most people covers around six weeks' worth of the increases we're all looking at.

Twats.

Our council says it will be paid some time between April and September

In Scotland, it's been applied automatically, appears as a £150 discount on your bill when you get notification of your annual charge.

@MargotMoon

We are in too high a council tax band.

Ours was taken off the bill, got a letter a fortnight ago with revised bill.

Our council's website says that they have yet to receive the funding from the government to pay it, which sounds very strange indeed considering that many people have already had theirs.

Is the government really paying some councils promptly and leaving others hanging (and we are right near the front of the alphabet, too) - or is it that others have the reserves/will to 'give the government credit' and pay upfront whilst ours is refusing/unable to foot the bill until they've had the money in first?

Either way, I believe that the government effectively sold it as £150 off your first CT payment of the year in April (whether knocking it off the amount due or the rebate hitting your account at pretty much the same time as the payment goes out), to give an extra month's breathing space - and in saying "Yeah, you WILL get it - at some point this FY), they have clearly proved that, in spite of what they claim, they really just do not get (or care about) ordinary people's financial situations and cashflow one bit.

It's not just a case of honouring an amount due at some point, to settle it off a dusty balance sheet somewhere; for many of us, it's about keeping our heads above water at a time when our bills have shot right up NOW.

@JayAlfredPrufrock Apparently there's a discretionary fund if you don't qualify so could be worth checking with the council to see if you could still get some help?

Mine says

Payments will not be made before April and must be made by September.

So maybe Sept is an England wide thing? I pay by DD so I am going to budget for receiving it in Sept, then if it comes early it is a bonus. Otherwise I will be constantly looking out for it and get frustrated.

The government said it would have to be made as a payment so the councils that haven't knocked it off the bill are following the guidance correctly.

I know people who work in this department and they are really stressed out with it. The number of payments they have to make without any warning and it's turning into a nightmare because the computer system they use isn't really set up for it.

Yes. My bill came in with a credit of £150 on it. I don't pay by dd.

Scotland, sensibly, just knocked it off the annual bill.

I work for a housing association who is currently offering a money support service, the majority of contacts are about the rebate, we're not even the council.

A word of warning though as this is happening in that county, the scammers are taking full advantage of the situation so if you get a call from the council about it asking for bank details it is a scam.

Surly they coukd of just taken less payments one month
I mean mine is £151 so just take £1 then normal payments
Much easier

I pay by DD so I am going to budget for receiving it in Sept, then if it comes early it is a bonus. Otherwise I will be constantly looking out for it and get frustrated.

This is what makes it so deliberately dismissive of ordinary people, I think. It's sold as a lifeline to ordinary people, but ordinary people need to know timings to be able to budget.

Without being told when to expect it - even if they were to say "It WILL be paid in September" - it completely negates the stated purpose of it and, instead of a lifeline to be able to allocate against costs in a particular month, you effectively have to work on not having it at all and then, when it does arrive, it's more into windfall territory rather than targeted help to pay for skyrocketing essentials.

Surly they coukd of just taken less payments one month
I mean mine is £151 so just take £1 then normal payments
Much easier

That would have made so much more sense. Our CT is slightly over £150 a month too, so it sounded like it was effectively one month almost free.

I realise that it requires different parts of government to talk to each other - that it isn't the council giving you from their own funds - but if this was deemed the best way, that was what they should have made happen.

@MargotMoon

Thanks for that information. I’ll definitely check. We are both retired and will struggle to pay all the increases so every little helps.

The government website doesn't say - presumably the £150 is not reduced for those of us on single adult discount rate? We should still receive the full £150 right?

Ours councils website says if you pay by DD you will get it by the end of April into your bank.
If you pay another way then there will be an application form for you to get it and to keep checking back for it.

On another note it says if you don't pay council tax and get benefits for this you will also get it by using the application form. I get council tax benefit but it doesn't cover all of it & I pay the rest by DD so I'm assuming I'll get it paid into my bank but I'm not entirely sure.