Council Tax hoping for some help

[lalaland3008]

Hoping someone can offer me some advice.

I pay my council tax in instalments every month using the auomated payment system, I basically key in the amount to pay, my card details and you get a receipt number. I've been doing this for years without any problems. Then in November 2011 I got a letter from the council saying I was missing a payment.

I phoned them up and they said I hadn't paid in October, I no longer had the receipt number but checked my bank account and all of the payments had definitely been taken. Anyway the guy on the phoned told me not to worry and they'd fill in a missing payment form and put the account on hold for 90 days.

90 days later I get another letter saying I'm still missing a payment, so I printed off all of my bank statements and send them in with a covering letter explaining that I'd made all payments up to date. I rang up after a couple of weeks to check they'd received the bank statements, which they had and the account was put on hold for anohter 90 days. I've phoned up a couple of times since to check ont he progress to be told by an uninterested call handler that Head Office are 'processing' it all and it can take 90 days and not to worry as I've done my bit by providing proof of payments.

So 90 days on and I've received another red letter not even aknowledging my bank statments and I still owe them an instalment.

Rang them straight up only to be told they've put my account on hold for another 90 days and the guy would send a memo to head office to ask what's going on. Apparently head office are not contactable by phone.

I'm so annoyed, does anyone know where I stand legally, is there anything else that can be done. It's really stressing me out now as it's £74 I can't afford to pay twice and the people ont he phone just seem to fob me off the whole time.

Don't pay it twice. My experience of most CT departments is that they have shambolic systems in place. They might even go as far as taking you to court. Be strong. Keep all of your correspondence and evidence and take it to court with you. It can be so tiring dealing with people who, for whatever reason, simply ignore everything you send to them.

I used to work in council tax and yes we do give a crap because we don't want people ringing back asking us to sort something out because we couldn't be bothered to do it in the first place

So the Council where I worked decided that to cut costs there would be a "front office" and a "back office". The back office is the council tax department, the front office is now the one stop shop where they have some training but usually not the amount of training you need to answer all questions on council tax. The front office deals with everything from bins not emptied to benefit claims to street lighting.

So it would seem that you are contacting the front office, and the "head office" is the actual council tax department.

They will have passed the paperwork to them for them to find your payment.

Can you email your council tax department? It may well be true that they aren't contactable externally by phone but if your call is too difficult for front line to answer then they usually put you through to the back office.

I would email council tax and if you haven't heard back then ask to speak to a supervisor and get a name and hopefully a direct line or extension number.

Are you just getting a reminder each time for the missed payment? Basically you should only ever receive 2 reminders, then it goes to final notice and the full balance of the year becomes due. If you are receiving more reminders it sounds like someone is resetting the account by suppressing the reminder.

Usually there is a marker on the account when we receive correspondence on it and the reminder then comes into the office and you make a decision on whether to send it out. I hope this helps.

Today was the third reminder which has also confused me as it does say that they wil onyl send two. But I think that's because they keep putting the account on hold so then it goes back to square one.

I've emailed the address on the reminder which is called counciltaxrecovery@
but have no idea where that will end up.

Legally should my bank statements be enough to proof that I have paid and get them off my back?

I think your bank statement should be ok. Also check the date you paid. I got caught one month by paying a couple of days late. Got sent a letter stating they were terminating my payment plan. if all else fails contact the CAB. Their volunteers seem to be able to sort things like this.