Woman refusing to pay bills when everyone else does

[jennylamb1]

In the hairdresser's a few weeks ago. A woman is telling the hairdresser that she doesn't pay any of her household bills (council tax, water, gas, electric) on principle. Saying that the council tax arrears letters are fake, that they make them up because when she went to court they hadn't sent a legal representative to defend themselves. Doesn't pay water bills because they can't cut you off because legally they can't. Talking about getting a new flat given to her with all new white goods etc (not sure how this came about, may have been homeless on the council's books if evicted). Sat there with lip fillers, nails done and a head full of expensive hair extensions.
It was annoying me because the hairdresser was 'oh, what are you like,' 'you crack me up,' this sort of thing as if it's OK, when plenty of honest people are getting stung by increased bills and paying their way, working families, pensioners etc. I get that she probably has a mountain of CCJs and a crap credit rating, but is this a thing now?

Unless everyone on your estate is showing you bank and rent statements, I'd take it with a bucket of salt that they aren't paying rent. In cases where people are on Universal Credit, the rent would be deducted at source if they failed to pay.

True, but they turn the water pressure down to a trickle so you can wash, fill a kettle but it takes minutes. Only done in cases where there has been no engagement with the water co.

Tom Holland stated in an interview once he hadnt paid a water bill in years, didn’t realise he had to

This reminds me, I used to work for a water company briefly, and at one point had someone ring up angrily asking why we were 'taking money out of their benefits for water, I'm on benefits I get it for free'

1. It's not free.
2. You are still getting it for free, it's just your arrears is now so big it's been agreed that we can take it direct from your benefits rather than waiting for you to pay us, which presumably someone has explained to you at some point, probably by yet another letter that you have ignored.

This was many years ago now! We also got a LOT of people asking why they should pay for water 'when it falls out of the sky' or drainage 'when it just goes into the drains'.

I grew up on an estate with a single parent, however she would work all hours to pay her way (evenings in a pub after a day at work) etc. I think the loss of that sort of mentality is a problem.

True, but they can’t all be lying. I think there’s a lot of juggling involved, eg they will set up payment plans with debtors that they don’t pay and then the processes start again.

I volunteer for Citizens Advice and see people all the time who are being taken to court for unpaid council tax, also bailiffs calling round for other debts. I find it very unlikely she's getting away with this.

Our tenants owed £4.5k in energy bills when we evicted them. No meter fitted
( thank goodness for us). Their council tax was reduced to 10% and they didn’t pay that either.
They worked cash in hand and sublet a room.
They didn’t pay parking penalties. The oldest dc turned his school taxi away most days.
In the early days we had bailiffs letters and people knocking. EON sold the debt to a dodgy company who tried to intimidate us into paying, we ignore them now.
AFAIK the ex tenants have never paid anything back to anyone and continue to only pay for drugs, food and drink.
When we let the house to them the original partner was a responsible woman but after she left the guy moved a druggie in and stopped doing regular work.

what do you mean? You don't know who this woman is so how do you know whether you pay her or not?

Attachment of Earnings orders are absolutely a thing, just because (presumably) you do payroll for somewhere where nobody has one, doesn't mean they don't exist! tbh it's quite worrying if you do work in payroll you haven't heard of them.

I used to work in council tax, if someone didn't pay it would go to court, they'd get a CCJ, and then there would be some sort of repayment schedule agreed - if they didn't stick to that then an AOE would be one possible form of repayment, as would similar from benefits, or removal of goods.

However with any of these, the amounts deducted has to be "reasonable" - e.g. if someone is only getting £100 universal credit a week you can't take £50 off them!

There were lots of people with multiple years council tax debt 'paying back' each of them at something stupid like £1 a week. As long as they stuck to that there was no further action, but obviously £52 a year is never going to pay back £1000plus council tax debt (plus enforcement costs) if you're racking it up each and every year. So, technically, the woman is right, she can get away with not paying her council tax for a while. As a pp has pointed out, to some extent the same applies with water.

At some point it will all catch up with her and people will refuse to extend any more credit/repayment terms and jail will become a possibility. At which point she will probably declare bankruptcy and the whole debt will be wiped off, and she'll start again!

Did she pay the hairdresser?

Undoubtedly it’s annoying to hear this drivel, but I think unreasonable to expect the hairdressers to say anything. They may well feel exactly the same as you (as would I) but just want to do their job & move on to the next customer.
I’ve been out & about when people have spoken about such nonsense to me, but I really couldn’t care less about it; so I smile and nod politely before shutting the conversation down. If you engage with these idiots and call them out, they continue to try and pull you in further.

She’s obviously unwell, either a disorder or something going on. She’s not entirely wrong, you can get away with that behaviour for a while, but never long term. Think of what her life will be like later on when she’s older. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.

And the hairdresser can’t really do anything about it. Did you expect her to kick her out or something?

Hairdresser has to humour her, assuming she pays her hairdresser bill?

About Attachment to Earnings - my XH never paid me any CS. Well, no, he paid for six months, then changed his job and stopped paying. The arrears built up and built up and around every 6 months or so I'd get a letter from the CSA saying that there were sanctions they could apply - they could take away his passport or driving licence or put an attachment to earnings on. These letters kept coming over the next ten years or so. He ended up owing CSA nearly a hundred thousand pounds (we had five children). In the end he restarted paying (youngest child by this time was in her 20s), but only paid for five years before retiring and no longer having to pay.

But if Attachment to Earnings is so easy to do and so often done - why wasn't it?

She's definitely bullshitting about getting away with it, there'll be consequences even if she doesn't realise them yet. And for all her bragging, it must be a fairly shitty life to never feel secure, be constantly hounded, constantly worrying about whether they're going to catch up to you, phone calls and letters all the time, wondering if the knock at the door is finally the bailiffs. Hardly a life of glamour.

The hairdresser was probably just saying whatever she could to shut the woman up, whilst not telling her client she's a fucking loser.

TBH it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

As for the hairdresser’s reaction, I suppose it would have been difficult for her to say anything critical.

On a similar theme, the friend of a friend, at a lunch party, openly boasted about how he’d lied to the council about his assets and got them to fund his housing costs for several months.
He’d recently returned to the UK after several extremely lucrative tax-free years abroad and had a couple of hundred grand in the bank.
But I’m glad to say that everyone went a bit quiet, and the host said that it certainly wasn’t anything to brag about.

Correct. They send to a debt recovery agency who add hundreds to the bill then they send the bailiffs in to take your goods. She is talking rubbish if she’s evaded it thus far it is because she moved addresses but they will catch up with her.

Absolutely, and I totally get the hairdresser's responses. The hairdresser's chair is not the place to call out this sort of nonsense, and the woman is a customer. The hairdresser probably went home and said pretty much the same thing to whoever she lives with.

If the wealthy can play the system and enrich themselves without paying fair share of tax why shouldn't the rest of us 🤷🏻‍♀️

My experience is that if you don’t pay your council tax then it gets rather nasty rather quickly. All the letters that say “if you are struggling to pay then please contact us on….” do not cover what to do if you are my 93 year old grandmother who was in the early stages of dementia and couldn’t remember how to pay.

What was particularly scary was when it got to court no one said “hang on - she’s 93 and has always paid in the past - could this be a welfare issue?” They just said “didn’t turn up for court”, slapped a CCJ on her and set up a payment plan. She was getting (hiding!) letters threatening prison when my mum finally figured out what was going on.

In common with many local authorities, my council starts proceedings if you are just one month behind with council tax payments. They once credited one of my payments to someone else's accoout (I have paid by DD for more year than I can remember) and I got a very threatening letter. I was able to prove that I had paid but they did not apologise. Their letter demanded the whole bill upfront and said that they would cancel my DD arrangement as I had defaulted.. If this is what happens after one missed payments I very much doubt they just shrug their shoulders after years of nonpayment.

May be some truth in the Council Tax.

I moved in to a place where the previous tenant hadn't paid anything for ages, so predictably the bailiffs were a regular visitor. I complained to the Council, saying that it was obvious that the previous tenant had moved on and they shouldn't be calling at my home. In order to 'solve' my complaint, the council wrote off the outstanding arrears. Public sector financial control is a thing to behold...

I was about to say this! She is either lying, a black hole level of dense, believes in conspiracy theories or is a fatal combination of all three. I watched one of those debt collection reality programs one night and I was shocked when they turned up at the house of a man who had got a parking fine in a private car park. He's mate down the pub told him to ignore the fine as it was a private car park and they couldn't legally impose a fine. His mate down the pub told him to ignore all the letters that came in, they were bluffing. His mate down the pub told him the county court judgement was fake. His mate down the pub was not around when the baliffs turned up to make good on a debt that now ran into the thousands. If she is really not paying bills, OP, it will catch up on her. Your hairdresser knows this full well but there is no use debating with an idiot.

Let her get on with it. If she tells the truth, you're going to find her sitting on the streets sooner or later. Hair mutted and nails all dirty and cracked.