to be freaking out right now?

[extremepie]

I've just received about 6 letters from the council asking me to pay back council tax which I owe.

Fair enough, I didn't pay it at the time and I do technically owe them money but these letters are for every property we lived in dating back to 2006! Why now all of a sudden are they on my case asking for the money back after 5 years?!

Also, I have no idea how much I owe as every single letter is for a different amount!

We currently have no income, other than benefits, as I am a full-time student and my husband is a carer for our autistic son so there is no way we can pay the money back.

Have also had a letter from a bailiff saying that in the next week they will be coming round to remove goods to pay for it - I don't think even if they take everything we own is would cover the amount!

What do I do?!

Help!!

Don't bother phoning the CAB right now - they tend to have huge waiting times to see someone.

Get off Mumsnet and go down to the Council Offices with all your paperwork and ask to see someone.

This is quite urgent because every day you put it off you will accrue more charges and risk being prosecuted if you haven't contacted them.

The council are under a legal obligation to give your child a school place. Have you tried asking for help in the Education threads? There are people with a lot of knowledge who can help you.

What Belle said regarding school places - they have to give you one.

If your DH is at home with your other son can't he take responsibility for home schooling?

Livingdead OP is not being irresponsible by trying to get an education, I don't think anyone's suggested that, but she is being irresponsible doing that while in debt and unable to pay her bills. It is irresponsible to expect the taxpayer/council to subsidise her education because she is choosing that over paying her bills.

• the mess you chose to create -

Um, I'm not sure that I chose for my husband to become severly depressed.

I'm not sure I chose to become severly depressed - although I suppose I did choose to attempt suicide.

I'm not sure I chose to be made redundant when I was 5 months pregnant.

I'm don't recall choosing to have a child with special needs.

I'm pretty sure I didn't make the decision to lose my home because my landlord sold our flat.

I could go on but it's probably pointless.

Sorry, when I said 'me' or 'I', I suppose I did mean 'we' or 'us' as my DH and I will share the home schooling duties.

I'm not sure where the responsible parent part is coming in here, personally I think that making sure my children are fed, clothed, clean and warm are important. Maybe I should have made a greater effort to pay my debts but I chose to put things like food and heating first. I don't think that makes me and irresponsible parent.

But you think what you like, I have made mistakes but at least I admit that and am trying to rectify it now.

I did try posting in education but unfortunately the only advise anyone seems to be able to offer is that I have to remain on the waiting list until a place comes up :(

He was offered a place at a school almost 2 miles away but, since we don't have a car and still have to take DS2 to pre-school, it would be almost impossible to ferry them to and fro all day every day so we had to decline it.

I want to remain at college because I only have about 7 months until I am fully qualified, at which point I can get a full time job and, hopefully, not need to rely on benefits anymore. I don't think that is irresponsible!

what about biking to school and pre-school, i am guessing there are no buses, and tho its a pita can one of you take one child, whilst another takes the other.

you can get bike seats for toddlers or a trailer for them both, obviously i dont know what SN your child has and how that may impact, but it might be an option to look into, you can get them in free adds, on gumtree cheaply quite often :)

and yes phone up the council, you may need to provide documentation of your student status and that may reduce the amount you owe and you can come up with a repayment plan even if its a tiny amount of £5 a month or less, they have to accept what you are offering.

and you are right you mustn stop your course when you are soo close to qualifying, it will hopefully open up a lot more job prospects and then you will be able to get yourself on the road to being debt free, good luck :)

Op - I am sure you have exhausted all avenues over schooling, but is there a possibilty of switching your ds 2's pre school arrangements around, or is it Is it specialist care he is having?

Um, sort of! He has a 1-1 person with him at pre-school, and they have quite a lot of experience with children with special needs, they have been very good so far.

The school that we are trying to get them both into has a speech and language unit and is really close to us so it would be the best place for them both. We're going to try and appeal again so will have to cross fingers :)

I think there are buses that go in the direction of the other school but to be honest even if we could get him there I wouldn't really want him to go there (it's not a very good school apparently).

I did eventually get through to the council and he advised me to go to the CAB! Going to try them again, will try and make an appointment for tomorrow :D

I'm sure you've not got too much to worry about re the back payments. If you haven't got the money, you haven't got the money.
You'll probably fill in some sort of income/expenditure form and pay (or they'll deduct from earnings) a small amount to pay it off incrementally over time - and when you're in a better position you can pay more.
Someone at CAB will help you through all this and will hopefully be able to reassure you - I hope you get hold of them soon.

Lesson learned though eh? Your council tax is just about your most important bill as people can go to prison for not paying.

can you not work evenings and weekends, or OH work evenings and weekends

we all have to pay what we owe, like it or not

Why don't you get a job? - Like I said, full time student!

thousands of students get jobs

anyway if you are deep in debt, you dont have the luxury of faffing around at college. That will have to wait until later, when you have some savings behind you love

This 'if you haven't got the money, you haven't got the money' attitude is part of the reason so many people are in debt in the first place - because we have got so used to having whatever we want and if we can't pay for it someone will help us out/let us off/reduce our payments. It is irresponsible.

OP I'm very sorry to hear about yours and OH's health problems, and the issues with your landlord and job. However I think how you handle the debt and your lives now is a separate issue. Unfortunately a lot of people are in the position of sending children to schools which aren't the best in the area because not everybody can go to the best schools. With both of you free during the day (I think you said your course was in night school kitchen?) it should not be impossible for you to walk the two mile trip with one DS and your OH to take the other to school.

If you can't afford to do your course and pay normal and compulsory living costs, then your course needs to go. Can you suspend it for a while whilst you pay off this debt and then go back?

Are neither of you working?

What has any of that got to do with the fact that you didn't bother paying council tax for five years?

Nothing.

You chose to have a child before you were qualified to earn much. You chose to have two children. You chose to not pay your tax. You chose to go to college. You chose not to work.

Therefore you choose to face the consequences.

The problem is without my college course I have very little chance at the moment of being able to get a job that will pay a decent wage.

Therefore, without college I will probably only get minimum wage jobs which are barely enough to live on let alone pay back what I owe.

My course is not at night school, it starts at midday in the classroom and finishes at night in the kitchen! It's not the kind of course where you can stop and start so that is not an option, plus if I waited until my debts were paid off, with the amount I could afford to pay off it would be years before I could go back.

It's not a case of wanting him to go to the 'best' school in the area and therefore rejecting the other one, it is more a case that we worked out how long it would take for us to get both of them to and from their schools and it just doesn't work (I won't go into it as it's quite long and boring!).

I don't have an issue with paying what I owe, I was just asking if anyone has any helpful suggestions about how I can do that and still have enough money to live.

As I've stated in previous posts, I haven't not paid my bills for 5 years, the bills are from 5 years ago until 3 years ago - 2 years.

Since then I have paid what I owe.

I'm not working at the moment because I'm in full time study but this last 5 months is the longest I've been not working, even after having my 2 kids.

Even after being in an accident where I cracked my pelvis and could barely move.

I was back at work a week after attempting suicide - I asked the doctor not to sign me off because I was the sole earner and we couldn't afford to be without my wages.

Please don't patronise me or make me sound like some sort of lazy scrounging arsehole because you don't know me or my situation.

Just out of curiosity, what would you do if your carefully made plans went wrong? If you got made redundant when you were pregnant (both of us were working full time when I got pregnant) and no one else would employ you because of it?

What would you do if you got pregnant again despite taking precautions? Would you abort your child?

What if you only had enough money to pay for food and heating or council tax but not both? Would you freeze and starve?

I got into debt because of necessity, not out of choice. My main debt other than the council tax is a big overdraft which I got when I was made redundant because it was the only way we could afford to pay all our bills.

Sorry for the mega post - I'm not saying all this as a 'poor me my life is so hard' but I just want to make the point that you shoudln't make assumptions about people's lives if you don't know the whole story!

'They have to send you a bill, then a reminder, then a summonds to attend court before they can send a bailiff. If you've not received any of these then the warrant is invalid. ' The warrant is not invalid - the Council does not have to provide proof of receipt, but proof of sending these out, and they will be able to do that. They will also have obtained a Liability Order from the Magistrates Court.

You can ask to have an attachment to benefits where it is taken straight from your benefits before they are paid to you. Councils prefer an AOB as it less costly than bailiffs.

You need to look at the periods on the bills, then work out what you were doing, and what you paid. You are most unlikely to be able to get ctb backdated now for 6 years ago.

Good post scaryteacher, I would get down the council offices and ask for the attachment to benefits, it is cheaper for the council hopefully they will accept a minimal amount until you finish your college course.

Re: the Bailiffs, if you go the c/tax office it shouldn't get to the bailiffs coming out.if you don't they will add charges for the visit if you are in or not. My friend who got behind with c/tax was advised by CAB NOT to open the door to them.
If you open the door and don't have the money to pay full amount (which obvs you don't) they will list all your items but hopefully accept a payment plan. If you miss a payment they can then enter your home, uninvited through unlocked door or open window and remove your goods.

The point is don't bury your head in the sand go and sort it now before you have the bailiffs knocking because the costs will spiral massively.

Good luck with your course and job hunting :)

www.advicenow.org.uk/advicenow-guides/consumer-and-money-problems/dealing-with-bailiffs/what-bailiffs-can-charge-html,621,FP.html
Bailiffs collecting Council Tax are not allowed to charge you for letters, but they can charge for 2 visits (£24.50 for the first, and £18.00 for the second). They can't charge you for any more than two visits (unless you owe Council tax for more than one year, then they can charge you for two visits per year). If they take your stuff, they can also make a 'levy charge' for their time and effort. The amount depends on the size of your debt: the more you owe, the higher the charge. The rules are complicated - but as a rough guide, if you owe less than £100 its £24.50, if you owe £500 its £40.50, if you owe £2000 it's £78.

They can also charge £12 for making a Walking Possession Agreement and, if you have not kept to the agreement, they can charge you for hiring a van to take your belongings away. This must be in line with normal van hire rates. Bailiffs cannot bring a van to your home and try to charge you for it before they get a 'walking possession agreement' - although many dodgy bailiffs will try this.

They can also charge ' reasonable costs' for selling your stuff.

If they have taken your stuff away, but don't sell it (because you have since paid up) they can charge you either £24.50 or up to 5% of the total they were collecting, whichever is the largest. If you have not paid the debt and costs off in the full (whether by a lump sum payment or by instalments) they cannot charge you this fee - although this is also something dodgy firms will try.

Be suspicious of anything not mentioned here - in particular anything called an 'enforcement' fee. If they do charge you more, get help from an advice centre

Just a suggestion OP - AIBU might not have been the best place for your initial enquiry. I second what others have said - go to the moneysavingexpert forums - this sort of stuff is meat and drink to them.

Oh, and remember that the CAB is a charity, not an arm of government. They're all volunteers and they are dealing with an impossible workload so try not to get too sniffy when they can't see you straight away.

And it's worth bearing in mind that many, many people WOULD have an abortion rather than a child they couldn't afford. Not saying you should have, just that your rhetorical question has no force when the answer is 'Er...yes!'

Yus, you are right in that some people would and I have no issue with those who would make that decision, that is their choice. Many people wouldn't, they would find a way to make it work (as we are trying to do!)

My point to the person who made that comment about the fact that I chose to have 2 children is that, yes I did, but the alternative was worse for us. It isn't always that easy. In that situation, neither option was really a good one but we went with the lesser of 2 evils so to speak.

I posted in AIBU because in my experience you are the most likely to get a response, even if it might not always be the one you want!

I do feel for the people who work in the CAB, they must get a whole truckload of people who are pissed off, frustrated, desperate to have someone to offload on. It can't be a very fun job but I'm glad they do it.

If you got made redundant when you were pregnant (both of us were working full time when I got pregnant) and no one else would employ you because of it? Not passing judgement here but just felt compelled to comment as I was also made redundant at 5 months pregnant. The advice is too late for you now but if you were made redundant after the 25 week mark they should have paid you your maternity leave in a lump sum. If it was before the 25 week mark you did not legally have to tell any prospective employers of your situation. I chose to wear loose tops and jackets to interviews and I also chose to inform those interviewing me that I was pregnant, AFTER I had impressed them. I was registering at employment agencies and taking technical tests the day after I was put on notice and I ended up with 2 days unemployed, worked until 5 weeks before DD was born, and when DD was 5mo the employer offered me a permanent position. Good luck sorting out your CT issue.

• if you are both at home i don't see the problem with this? -

We're not both at home, at least not all the time, most of the time it is my DH who takes them to pre-school and picks them up, and he would be the one taking them to school if they had a place!

Unfortunately I was made redundant at about 19 weeks so I wasn't entitled to any maternity/redundancy pay, and I hadn't worked for them long enough anyway. I couldn't even apply for jobseekers at the time, it was kind of a sucky situation.

But thank you :)