to think this is totally unfair and I shouldn't have to pay?

[ABrotherWhoLooksLikeHellMugYou]

Received a notice of non-payment of council tax earlier this week. Checked my bank account and the DD had been taken as planned, so assumed the letter was just sent out precipitously and (as I couldn't get the fucking website to load, nor could I get through to anyone on the phone) mentally put the matter aside.

Today DP and I have received a fucking COURT SUMMONS for non payment of council tax. I checked my bank account again, yes, it's definitely gone out. I checked my online council tax account - it is actually working today - yup, the last payment went out early this week, and the month prior to that and so on - we're all up to date, only now they've added on the fucking admin fee for the court summons.

I am fucking RAGING. The sheer stress of receiving a court summons, especially when it's unfair and unnecessary. Of course the council is bloody closed now, so all I can do is send them a very chilly message and rant on here about it and wait until Monday to ring them, if I can actually get through.

Anyway, my AIBU - AIBU to think I shouldn't have to pay the admin fee for them issuing a court summons considering I deliberately set up a DD in May so mistakes wouldn't be made and I wouldn't forget to pay?

Also, is there anything I can do to fight this, or are they just going to make me pay anyway? I could really do without this shit atm.

Or have you missed previous payments?

Exactly this.

They wouldn’t send a letter referencing one missed payment and then a court summons in the same week. It takes weeks to get things through a court system for a start, and they’d have to issue you with some sort of final notice for payment. They wouldn’t summons you for one missed payment immediately, you’d have to have a significant amount of arrears built up for that. Are you certain that the letters are legitimate? You need to speak to a real person at the council!

Not saying that this is the case with you but it’s worth checking back a bit further. I had similar a few years back, I’d set up a DD but I accidentally missed a payment as I wrongly assumed the DD was active but it wasn’t.

If they’ve already sent it to Court it wouldn’t be likely to be a recent payment. I ignored the council letters for ages until I got a big red Debt Collection Agency letter. I had to pay the (extortionate) admin charges but stopped it before it went to court.

I hope this isn’t what’s happened in your case and you can get it sorted out 💐

I work for the council tax dept in my local council. Letters sent that quick after each other don't seem right. You get reminders and a date in which you need to catch up and then a summons if no payment which could be weeks/months later.
have you set up a DD for this years payment but have precious years debt?
set up a DD using the wrong ctax acc number?

either way can be sorted by calling them on Monday.

Thanks all for the messages. To answer one query - I did try to call but I couldn't get through and it's been a mental week at work with a big delivery deadline so I had limited time to hang around on the phone. I didn't call again because I assumed it was just a x post issue.

It also says on their online council tax portal that I have paid all of this year's council tax, although they have now also added on that administration fee, so how they could recognise my payments yet apply the non payment fee on the same portal is mystifying.

I'm going to go examine the letters more closely, but the fact the fee is appearing on the portal would seem to indicate that they're not a scam.

Reminder goes out after 1 month, court summons comes out 1 month later.

if you’ve set up a DD there’s 2 things that are likely to have happened:

• You have another council tax at another address, if you’ve recently moved or have a second home check the account numbers at the top match.
• You set up a DD but missed a payment before that that wouldn’t have collected onto the DD and that’s still outstanding.

What is very unlikely is that you’ve never missed a payment and you’ve received these. These things are automated and it would be almost impossible to get it wrong twice.

check your bank statements back to March and ensure every payment was made.

Ctax court summons doesn’t mean you need to attend court, there’s no CCJ and you don’t have to pay the full amount at once, you can set up a voluntary arrangement to pay everything owed including court fees as long as the entire balance is paid by 31st March 2023.

If it’s a mistake and you have paid and the systems are just messed up then they’ll cancel it immediately including all fees once you call.

NC so you don't hate me!

I do small claims courts for a public sector organisation as part of my job. First they should send you a letter saying you are late and enclosing details, and give you a reasonable amount of time to respond -this would be at least 2 weeks but more likely 4 weeks.

Next, they should follow the pre- action protocol before claims, and send you a letter which includes invoices and details of what could happen if they take you to court, plus a page to fill out if you wish where you can detail incomings and outgoings to show any extenuating financial circumstances. You usually get 30 days to respond to that letter.

After that they would probably have to get approval from their legal team to commence proceedings, and only then will you get a letter from the court saying that a claim has been opened against you. You then get time to respond to that. If it goes to court, the court will expect to see that they acted reasonably and fairly and followed the above steps.

As other posters have said, it seems very weird that you'll get this letter so quickly, and I think so early in the financial year, so I would check if it could possibly relate to a previous year and if not it is probably a scam. Call them on Monday and try not to worry about it.

May was paid by debit card, then u set up direct debit. I wonder if these summons are from a system that thought we were paying by card and it hasn't registered that we're now paying by DD?

This in spades.

I'd be livid too OP. Its a hassle and time that most of us don't need in our lives. Not to mention the initial panic that you've done something wrong.

And it has potential ramifications for credit scores that can take years to sort out.

Anyone who thinks its not worth being annoyed about either has too much time on their hands or is totally ignorant to the potential consequences of a CCJ.

Sorry. No. April was paid a day late by card, then we set up the direct debit so we wouldn't miss a payment again.

I think this must be a computer issue relating to the April late payment and I just need to find a human to give the computer a smack.

Thanks for letting me panic on here (those of you who were kind about it). Will just have to wait until Monday now.

Try looking at your previous years council tax, I once missed the last payment (don’t know how my stupidity really!), then paid the next financial years in full.

First time I new about the previous years missed payment it was a court summons! Paid it as soon as I received the summons, but thought it was a bit stupid since we where two months into the new financial year and I had paid my new full yearly council bill in one go - so technically they owed me money….

Hi op

I work in this area

firstly council tax summons for no payment are for a liability order at magistrates court so no ccj

m own council sends a reminder with 7 days to bring account up to date the summons are issued automated as part of the system

speak To them likely they will see payments made and summons will be withdrawn including costs

that is what I would do if I were to get this call with proof of payment or even if there was a missed payment due to admin error

try not to worry this is usually sorted very easily. I say this as someone who would make this type of decision.

The bit that stands out is you set a direct debit up so you didn't forget, what about previous month's and previous years are there missed payments there. It seem very quick to Court letters.

Any payments from last year missing?

Also include a redacted paper copy of your bank statement showing all the DD paynents you have made so the council have no excuse for not cancelling the obnoxioous letters they sent you, and if course cancelling admin charges too.

Some 'braincell' in the council have screwed up and the fact that this has happened during a horrendous cost of living crisis is apalling.

We have been having the same issue, getting letters saying it isnt paid but THEIR payment system isnt working properly and it has been paid.

We have to phone up and go through this song and dance EVERY month.

The people DH have talked to on the phone have been nice but they seem as annoyed but they system as we are.

I cant even get on the system as it insists my NI does not exist (I varified it and its definately correct).

You have paid so you should be absolutely fine and it sounds like it was sent in error.

However, anytime you receive a letter like this it’s important to ring asap and then send an email if you can’t get through.

I paid 24p extra to round it up to the nearest pound and put my account in credit, as that’s what I do with my rent.
They immediately added on £90 charges and said if I don’t pay they’ll take me to court.
I appealed these charges and they took it to court without me knowing (apparently with council tax they can do it without you there) so I had extra charges put on and so I appealed that which ended up getting me another £90 charge.

Long story short I ended up owing hundreds just because I paid 24p more than I should of as apparently that’s not sticking to the payment plan.

Council tax are buggers and any letter you get contact them straight away.

Exactly the same thing has happened to us!.they couldn’t stop the summons so it went to court with extra charges!

Do make sure that you file a defence to the county court summons though stating you have paid in full and setting out the date and method of payment. Otherwise if the council carry on in their incompetent manner if you don't reply and rely on them withdrawing (which may not happen) you could end up with a judgement against you. Just belt and braces. Don't assume they will sort ot properly quickly enough.

Print everything and if they won’t accept their error submit your bank statement and a screenshot or print out of the website to the court.

This will be because your pay,ent is being incorrectly added somewhere.

They don't send a summons for 1 missed payment. They will have missed a few months.

You'll get it sorted because you can prove you paid.

It is unfair and council tax departments are incredibly inept ime. I deal with them in my role and I've lost count of the times they've issued bills to the wrong people, for the wrong periods and that's after emails and telephone calls. Covid made the problem a million times worse as lots of LA's IT struggled and they didn't update their systems.
Check the guidance around debt collection and billing. They tend to try ignore the legalities around time periods, offers of alternate methods of payment, etc. In actuality, they try to get tenants to pay in advance and then add fees if they don't but they have no legal right to do either.

Had this with a client of mine. Building owned in London. We pay council tax on time by dd. However council decided that even though we’d sent the funds and used the correct reference we hadn’t paid. Apparently we were meant to pay each floors rates separately. and thought we had. But the payment got lumped into one on their end.

Bloody nightmare to sort out.

These things are designed to make you fume. Just relax. If you've got proof you paid then this error could be presented to them as 'please rectify' or you could go for compensation for the anxiety caused by a court summons. Are you in any way vulnerable?

April was paid a day late by card, then we set up the direct debit so we wouldn't miss a payment again.
I think this must be a computer issue relating to the April late payment and I just need to find a human to give the computer a smack.

Nothing happens if you're a day late with payment. You get a few days grace. I suspect it's either mistaken identity or a missed payment from a previous year. I've done that before. Thought I was up to date but I wasn't.