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?

You can’t honestly believe she’s telling the truth about all of this can you…? No, it’s not a thing that everyone’s doing now. Even if half of what she says is true, she’ll be in atrocious debt, with an appalling credit score and constantly running the risk of prosecution. Who’d want her life? It sounds a bit sad to me, really. Don’t waste your time feeling annoyed about it. Take it with a pinch of salt.

She's full of shit and the hairdresser is very well trained in customer service.

She will end up homeless because in the end they will make her pay.

This myth again. The top 1% of earners get around 13% of all income but pay nearly 30% of all income tax receipts. For comparison, the bottom 50% of earners get around 25% of all income and pay less than 10% of all tax receipts.

Sounds like freeman on the land, sovereign citizen or similar legal woo. Indeed, the claim by this woman that council tax arrears letters are fake suggests she has fallen for one of these.

AOE earnings is exceptionally easy to apply for council tax, the process is just rubber stamped in 'court' and a letter sent to employer, who are duty bound to follow it.

CMS is entirely different to council tax and their procedures are rubbish, they can and do regularly enforce AOE on employees though. But not much beyond that. If people are constantly switching jobs, its harder to catch up with them obviously.

Possibly for other debts but not rent. Social housing landlords can have the rent paid directly to them with no say from the tenant. Private landlords more tricky but they wouldn't continue to rent to someone who wasn't paying, so there would be lots of section 21 or section 8 evictions happening if people weren't paying.

Thank you for that. The way CMS kept telling me about all the things they 'could' do to get him to pay just made me want to shout 'well why don't you DO IT, then?' But you're right and he did change jobs fairly frequently, which was probably why they couldn't apply an AOE, although in my opinion, if it was made a lot easier then fewer men would refuse to pay.

Is she single or does she have a partner/live with somebody else?

It may be that she fully believes in what she's saying - and is insistent that she doesn't have to pay - but she may live with a DH/DD/carer who does understand the reality and just sighs and pays all the bills quietly without disabusing her of her notions.

Whilst it shouldn't come as any surprise to receive council tax demands if you haven't been paying your council tax, there are so many rather convincing scams of all varieties out there that target people relentlessly, I can kind of see how vulnerable people may struggle to tell the difference between yet another scam and a genuine demand from the authorities/utilities etc.

I knew someone who did it with gas and electric unfortunately they moved into a property with prepayment meters and have been "poor" ever since

Someone else did it with water apparently they can't dock pip money and she was the only one on the tenancy agreement that was her only income so they did nothing

I also agree with PPs that I would tread very carefully as the hairdresser in providing a service where customers pay afterwards if I had one who constantly boasted about never paying any bills!!

The CMS is really rubbish for some people. I don't know why they threaten passport removal etc, because the % of cases in which they actually do is miniscule.

My friends ex has NEVER paid. He sets up payment plan after payment plan, never sticks to it, they forever say its his last chance and it never is.

She’s probably talking bollocks or at the very least, exaggerating. And if she’s telling the truth, she will have bailiffs knocking on the door eventually.

People who wilfully refuse to pay council tax and don’t engage in repayment plans can be sentenced to three months in prison.

The hairdresser almost certainly thinks she’s a loudmouthed dickhead and is being polite because she’s a paying customer.

I was referring to the woman that I know, not the woman in the original post. I'm well aware of Attachments of Earnings, but thank you for presuming I don't! The woman that I know, doesn't have one

What did you expect the hairdresser to say?

"You, ma-am, are a liar and a cheat and I banish you from my hair salon!"

No, she's a paying client. She will be polite.

On benefits perhaps?

Council will eventually send the bailiffs out for council tax debts. gas and electric will be cut off and put on a meter and they have to pay the debt back out of each top up. water is suspect is true.

I think as this is something you overheard, not having the full facts and not being part of any of the agencies involved it falls squarely into the camp of ‘not your business’. The woman sounds crazy. Forget it and live your life.

Just leave a bad review for the hairdresser online and don't go back there again if you feel they're allowing an environment that makes honest people uncomfortable.

Ah Freeman on the Land tripe, common Law and Magna Carta bullshit, that has no relevance anyway.

We bought a flat whose owner had evidently returned PDQ to his country of origin - taking the huge profit he’d made after buying the place years previously via Right to Buy.
it was very soon evident that he’d left a mass of debt behind, everything from utilities to a bank loan. It all came to over £20k. I had to start opening his mail, if I didn’t want debt collectors turning up en masse.
An explanatory letter (12! - IIRC) with a copy of our council tax bill, was enough to make them all back off.
But it really pisses me off to think that he could almost certainly return to the UK tomorrow and nothing would happen to him.
I bet such cases are not uncommon (this was in London). We are far too soft!!

I've NC'd for this, you'll see why!
I didn't pay council tax for a long time. Basically buried my head in the sand. The bigger the debt became, the more scared I was to tackle it. Until one day I got paid and they'd put 2 attachment of earnings on me, which left me not enough to live on. I owed £18,000! So potentially yes, you can get away with it for a long time but they will catch you in the end. They did agree to a (high) payment plan and I've got it down to 5k now so I'm getting there. A few more months to go. But with having to pay that plus the usual yearly bill it's been tough. Not that I'm expecting any sympathy!

I haven't paid for water either, I think ever. Which puts me in the same scenario as I was with the CT as i'm too scared to contact them as they'll probably want thousands off me. But, as far as I am aware, their powers are less than the council have. So I continue to ignore it for now. I couldn't afford to give them anything while I'm paying back the council.

I've run up credit cards in the past, but they get written off after 6 years so I don't really think about that. I could say oh its because of this and that reason but no one needs to hear my excuses. I've just been really irresponsible.

I am getting better. I certainly will never not pay my CT again now! I have had CCJ's but I'll never be getting a mortgage or private renting where it would really matter. And my credit score is getting better again.

So yes I can well belive there are others like me.

Oh please don’t do this!!! It’s definitely not ok to publicly slate someone’s business for this. What else could she have done other than “what are you like”, it’s as much the hairdressers business how she spends her money (or doesn’t!) as it is the OPs.

It takes them a while but they will take it out of her benefits, send bailiffs and evict her. She'll have to live in a hostel or on the streets as she won't get offered a council flat with rent arrears. They are really strict about it now.

country is full of them and us who do pay our bills and battle to pay correct amounts get battered by higher rates. They have their priorities totally backwards but feel entitled and the world revolves around them. I have no patience or time for people like that.

Seems crazy that credit card bills are written off after 6 years. Might be worth me going on spending spree before I retire.