AIBU to not be able to make head nor tail of this letter re Council Tax

[Zulor]

Situation is: I'm unemployed since 22nd October.

I applied for Universal Credit. They told me I need to apply separately for Council Tax Support, which I duly did.

About a week ago, I got a letter stating I've been awarded council tax support.

Today I get THE most confusing letter ever.

The gist of it as follows:

1. You no longer qualify from 29 October to 1 April 2019. The reason is natural migration to Universal Credit.
2. Then it goes on about Universal Credit and some jumbled figures
3. You will need to pay a minimum of 24% of the charge (£4.34 a week)
4. Then there's a council tax bill which says I've to pay the following amounts:

28.12.2018 £110 28.01.2019 £111 28.02.2019 £111

Can anyone tell me what this is about?

My monthly direct debit was 83 quid odd when I was working.
How the hell are they working this out?

I don't know what the figures are!
I've typed out the exact figures and what it says they are but I have zero clue as to what they're on about!

Did you earn anything in October? If so how much? Check your payslip or bank statement.

It's very frustrating. Should I call the council then or who?

Yes, I would have had about £1100 earnings in October as was off sick the week prior to leaving.

Well that's where the figure is from, then!

So they think I'm going to earn that amount every month, despite being signed off sick for 3 months?
What a mess.

We're in December now, so how would my October earnings have any bearing on CTS now? I'm pretty sure they took the full Council tax amount in October.

Ok, 29th October they took £83 Council Tax
They have taken nothing in November.

My guess is this: the council received the information about your October earnings from HMRC/DWP. Their system made an automatic calculation based on the incorrect assumption that you will continue to earn the same amount.

So you need to phone the council, explain that you left your job on 21 Oct and have been claiming UC since then. Ask them to recalculate your council tax support based on this info. If you've received a P45 from your employer this will be useful, you can show it to the council to prove you left. But if you don't have one yet it doesn't matter. They should get the info from DWP about your UC award, and recalculate, but given that this is all based on their IT and admin systems working correctly, i advise you to call them to make sure

I have a P45
They know I applied for UC as they were the ones telling me to apply
They appear to have knowledge of my UC award prior to me knowing, as the figures they've sent me show a Total UC award.

there is a page on facebook called universal credit essentials they will be able to explain it to you, just message one of the admins, i had to help someone who doesnt have access to the internet and didnt know how any of it worked. they were great

Oh I dunno. It would make you cry.

The council tax office couldn't have possibly sent you a breakdown of your UC award as they have nothing to do with UC. It may be from the benefit department of your local council, although I've never seen a council give a breakdown of UC (I worked in benefits and CTax for years as a contractor so have worked for many councils). They just get given the total figure by the DWP, not a breakdown of each element.
The letter giving your weekly breakdown of CTS is also likely to be from the benefit department; your council tax bill would just show the total figure you've been awarded and the amount left to pay, with your installments.
If your CTS award has been recalculated based on the figures you have stated re your UC, and you believe they are incorrect, you need to call the DWP and have them correct it.

Well with all due respect, I'm not making it up!

Dear Miss Zulor

Your claim for Council Tax Support has been reviewed.
You no longer qualify from 29 October to 1 April
Your Weekly Council Tax Reductions:
From 29 October to 1 April, you do not qualify
no. of weeks 22
Old award £13.73
New award £0.00
Weekly Excess Reduction £13.73
Total Excess Reduction £302.08

And on and on it goes with more and more indecipherable gibberish.

It gives my Council Tax Number at the top of the letter.
It's the same sort of letter as the one awarding me CTS.

It includes a council tax bill.

You could take a pic (with name and address and any personal code numbers covered) of the letters and post them here?

It may be that someone here might be able to read the gobbledigook and understand it!

(it wont be me, btw - i was in tears about council tax/housing ben/ over payment demands confusion about 18 months ago)

Ok perhaps I'm not explaining myself clearly. I will try again.

One of the features of the new benefits system is that it's meant to be based on "real time" data with all the different systems talking to each other. So your earnings data from HMRC will be shared with the DWP to work out your UC and this will also be shared with the council to work out your council tax support. The thing is that it's all automated so there is not necessarily a person using their actual brain to calculate it based on what you've told them. The computers might think that you're going to carry on earning ~£1100 even though you've told them that you've stopped working. (People can be in paid work and on UC at the same time.) So you need to contact the UC helpline and the council to check that their systems have the correct info from November onwards ie zero earnings. Offer to give the council a copy of your P45.

I hope that's clear but if not I repeat my previous advice to contact Citizens advice. This is all a bit tricky to explain on a forum!

020 8496 3000 - number for Council Tax Benefit.

It seems that you had been awarded Cts. Now there has been a change in your circumstances prob your award of UC this has resulted in an automatic assessment of CTS.

Your CTS will be awarded based on the figures used to calculate your UC award so if UC shows earnings theses will be used for the CTS award. Whe. uC is recalculated so will your CTS award. However if you don’t qualify you may well have to reapply.

It would be worth calling your council to ask about the CTS award as they will know how they have calculated it

No you won't have to reapply for council tax support.

One last thing. You should cancel your direct debit for council tax if you haven't already cancelled it. This is to protect against them taking £100+ out of your account that you can't afford to pay. Obviously you can reinstate the direct debit when this is all sorted out. But in the meantime I wouldn't risk it.

Ok, if I cancel it just through my bank, will it cancel it altogether?

Yes

You should also tell the council you are cancelling it and you can explain that it's because of your latest bill and your query about the calculation (not to mention not being able to afford it).