Attachment of earnings for council tax

[Januaryworries]

Hi. I've been having money taken from my wages under the heading "court" for unpaid council tax. I can't afford the deductions as there are 2 orders so they're taking a third of my wages.

I knew I owed them money but didn't receive a letter about any court action. Zilch in the post and I've lived here years, havent moved. No notice of when it was implemented. Just noticed when I got paid less.

So I've contacted the court back and forth. It would definitely be the right court. They can't find any order at all. I contacted the council, 2 letters, 2 emails, and 2 calls for which someone was supposed to call me back and never did! No response at all. What do I do? I don't know where else to go with this. TIA

Has payroll confirmed which council the attachment of earnings was from? I would expect there to be a letter on file.

If you have had no communication with them how do they know where you work to obtain an attachment of earnings? That usually follows the "liability order" granted by the court to request information from you about your income and expenditure. There should have been several letters sent to you about owing money. Sadly this is a tax collected locally but a tax and that is why they have the power to deduct it directly from your salary.

You need to contact the council tax department again but also contact your payroll department to see who the attachment is from and what years it covers.

Payroll have only given me a reference number and the name of the court, which I forwarded to the court. I definitely wasn't sent any forms to fill in. Basically I got letters saying I owed CT, then they passed it to bailiffs who said they wouldn't accept anything less than full payment, which I couldn't do. That was my last communication on this. No letters since.

Basically I got letters saying I owed CT, then they passed it to bailiffs who said they wouldn't accept anything less than full payment, which I couldn't do. That was my last communication on this. No letters since.

Do you have all that on file? Emails sent to bailiffs etc? Can you go back to the bailiffs/debt collection agency and ask them to send you all the correspondence on their file? They should have a paper trail of it being passed over as a court matter. How long ago was that?

I know what’s done is done but you simply cannot ignore council tax debt. You should have kept on at the bailiffs at time if you didn’t hear more about it.

You could try Citizen’s Advice if you are being stonewalled. But really it’s just a case of keep on at the council. Are there any drop-in advice sessions you can go to?