Council tax - after court action

Attachment of Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support or Pension Credits
Attachment of Earnings Employee information
Attachment of Earnings Employer information
Bailiff information
Bankruptcy
Charging Order
Committal to prison
Contact details and times  
Financial Information form information
Summons Information document                                                                                      

Attachment of Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support or Pension Credits
The Council can make deductions of approximately £3.00 per week for Council Tax from the above benefits.  We do not need your permission to do this if a liability order has been granted at Court.

The deductions will continue until the Council Tax that you owe is paid in full, or you stop receiving benefits.  If you stop receiving benefits and the debt is still unpaid, you need to contact us to arrange payment straight away.

Attachment of Earnings Employee Information
If you have received an Attachment of Earnings Order, your employer will deduct a set percentage from your wage to pay your Council Tax until it is paid in full.  We do not need your permission to do this if a liability order has been granted at Court.

Neither your employer nor the Council decides the amount to be deducted - it depends on how much you earn.  In all cases, the more you earn, the more will be deducted.  The rate of deductions is set by Central Government.

The Council will not cancel these attachments once they are set up unless you can prove you are having severe financial difficulties.  If you believe this applies to you, you must bring original documents proving all your income and outgoings to our counter at Great George Street during office hours.  This includes bank statements, bills and mortgage statements.

You then need to show us that after you have paid for essential things, the attachment(s) will mean that you cannot make ends meet.  We can only take account of essential spending, not spending on things you could manage without.  We may then agree to cancel one or both of your attachments.  However, you will still have to pay your Council Tax, and we will have to agree how you are going to do that.

Attachment of Earnings Employer Information
If you have received an Attachment of Earnings Order for an employee, you must use the table enclosed with the Order to deduct the appropriate percentage from your employee’s wage.  You can deduct an extra £1.00 for each deduction to cover your administrative costs.  You must then send the payment to us.  Our address is provided in the order.

You may receive a maximum of two Orders for Council Tax arrears for one employee at any one time.  Where two Orders are in force, you need to deduct the appropriate percentage for the earliest Order first.  Then, you need to deduct the appropriate percentage for the second Order, depending on how much wage is left after the first deduction.  The second Order does not replace the first, and both deductions must be made at the same time until they are paid. 

If you receive a third Order, you should not apply this but contact us instead.

You must send payments to us within 19 days of the end of the month when the employee was paid.  If you do not do this, it is a criminal offence and you can be fined up to £1000.

You must tell us within 14 days if the employee named on the Order does not work for you, or has left your employment.  Please call us if you have any queries on 0113 398 4732. 

Bailiff information
We appreciate that visits from bailiffs can cause distress and we will only use them where we have no other way of getting payment from you.  We will not normally use bailiffs if:

you have agreed a payment arrangement with us;

• you are receiving Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance, or
• you have provided your employment details

There are two private bailiff companies who work on behalf of Leeds City Council, and they are both members of professional bodies, such as the Enforcement Services Association, and the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation.  Every bailiff employed holds a Court Certificate and is properly trained to behave in a professional manner.  They allowed by law to charge certain fees, and the amount charged must be agreed with the Council.

If the bailiffs come across potentially vulnerable people such as the elderly or seriously ill, we have asked them stop taking action and to inform us straight away.  In most other cases, the Council will not be involved - once the bailiff has contacted you, we expect you to deal directly with them.

The two companies we use are:

You should contact us directly if you wish to question what bailiffs can and cannot legally do, or if you have a complaint about a bailiff’s behaviour or the costs you have been charged.

Bankruptcy
If you owe Council Tax of more than £750, we may decide to take bankruptcy action against you.  As you could lose your home and possessions to pay off your debt, this is a serious course of action.  We usually only take this step if we have tried other ways to get payment from you but have not been successful. The Council does not want to make people bankrupt and would much prefer to make an agreed payment arrangement with you.

If we decide to take bankruptcy action against you, we will write to you first giving details of your debts and explaining how bankruptcy will affect you.  If you receive a letter like this from us, please contact us straight away to make an arrangement to pay.

If we do not hear from you or receive full payment, we will send you a “Statutory Demand”.  This is a very important document which you must not ignore.  You should take legal advice if necessary, or contact us.

If you do not act in line with the “Statutory Demand” within 21 days, we will serve you with a Bankruptcy Petition.  This will be followed by a hearing at the County Court.  At that hearing, we will ask for our legal costs to be payable by you.

The legal costs and the costs of employing an insolvency practitioner can be expensive and are often more than the Council Tax debt.  If we write to you about bankruptcy, it is in your own interests to either pay in full, or make an agreed payment arrangement and keep to it exactly.

Charging Orders
If you owe at least £1000 for Council Tax, we can place a “Charging Order” on your property.

If we decide to do this, we will first write to you giving details of your debt and explaining how a charging order would affect you.  Please contact us without delay at this stage to make an arrangement to pay.

If we do not hear from you or receive full payment, we will apply to the County Court to place a charging order on your property.  This means that, when the property is sold, the charge must be paid before any money can be paid over to you.  We will ask the court to include our legal costs, which can be very expensive.  It is in your own interests to pay all the Council Tax outstanding before we apply to court for a charging order.

The County court can give the Council permission to force a sale of the property so that your unpaid Council Tax and costs can be paid.  We would not normally ask for this.

We would much prefer to receive your payment rather than ask for a charging order, owing to the high legal costs usually passed on to you.  We will only apply for a charging order if we have tried other ways of getting payment from you but have not been successful.

Committal to prison
When we have tried to collect your Council Tax by all other methods, including using bailiffs, we can ask the Magistrates Court to send you to prison for not paying.  If the Magistrates Court believe that you either refused to pay or could have paid but did not, they can send you to prison for up to three months.

If we have sent you a Committal Information Form, you must fill this in and either pay in full or make an offer of payment.  If you do not pay in full or return the form, we will send you a Committal Summons.  This will give you a date and time to attend Leeds Magistrates Court.  You will have to pay costs for this summons.

The Magistrates will look at your income and spending and decide if you are, or have been, in a position to pay your Council Tax.  The Magistrates can order you to make payments, or send you to prison for up to three months.

If you do not come to Court, we will ask the Magistrates for a warrant for your arrest.  You will be charged for this.  An Enforcement Officer will arrest you and take you to court.  Again, the Magistrates can order you to make payments, or send you to prison for up to three months.

In this serious situation, it is clearly in your own interests to pay your Council Tax in full.  If you cannot, and the Magistrates order you to make payments, you must pay exactly as ordered. If you do not, you can be sent to prison.

The Council does not wish to send people to prison and will only take this action as a last resort.

Contact details and times

Email           ctax.recovery@leeds.gov.uk

Fax              0113 247 5926 or 0113 247 5874

Telephone    0113 398 4732

                  Monday to Thursday    8:30 to 17:00*

                  Friday                       8:30 to 16:30*

* If you cannot call during these times, please ring and leave us a message.  Please speak clearly and slowly and leave your full name, a daytime telephone number, your Council Tax account number and the address of the property you’ve been charged for.  We will call you back as soon as we can.

Financial Information Form information
If you receive a Financial Information Form from us, you must complete it fully, including your work details, and send it back to us within 14 days.  If you do not return it, only complete some of the details or give false information, you can be fined up to £1000 and get a criminal record. 

If you cannot complete it in time or need time to gather all the information, please contact us.

If you do not return the form, we can either use bailiffs to collect your debts, or send you a summons for not returning the form.  You would have to pay the bailiffs fees, or run the risk of getting a criminal record.  For more information on bailiffs, please see the section Bailiff information.

Summons Questions

Why have I been sent this summons?
This summons has been sent to you because you have not paid your Council Tax account in line with the instalment plan which Leeds City Council gave you.  We have already sent you a reminder or final notice, and the law says that we must now send you a summons for the whole balance on your account. 

If you want to stop the case going to the Magistrates Court, you need to pay the full amount shown on the front of the summons, including the summons costs, before the hearing date.

What if I can’t pay in full before the hearing date?
If you have not paid the full amount on the summons (including the summons costs) by the hearing date, the Council will ask the Magistrates for a liability order.  This will add extra costs to your bill. The liability order gives us certain powers, such as:

• we can arrange to take money out of your wages or benefits; and
• we can arrange for bailiffs to take away some of your possessions and sell them.

Instead of using the above powers, the Council will consider making a special payment arrangement with you.  If you do not keep it up to date, they may use the full powers which the liability order gives them.  If you cannot pay as agreed, please telephone the Council Tax office on 0113 222 4404 straight away.  You will need to give details of your income and outgoings.

Do I have to go to the Magistrates Court for the hearing?
You do not need to go to court for the hearing unless you have a ‘valid defence’ to stop the Magistrates granting a liability order. There are two main defences which can do this.

1.  The Council has not followed the procedures set down in law when trying to collect your Council Tax; or

2.  You have paid the Council Tax.  (If you think this is the case, please telephone the Council Tax office before the hearing so they can look into it for you.)

You can speak to the Court about either of these things, or you can get a solicitor to speak for you.  You will need to provide evidence to back up what you say.  The Court cannot take into account any other reasons why you have not paid, even if you have been unable to pay.  They cannot change the law and they must apply it as it stands.

You cannot talk to the Court about subjects that a Valuation Tribunal should deal with, such as entitlement to discounts or exemptions from Council Tax.  If you have appealed to a Valuation Tribunal and are waiting to hear about it, you still have to pay your Council Tax in full. If your appeal is successful, we will send you a refund if you have overpaid.

You cannot talk to the court about the fact that you believe you should have Council Tax Benefit.  If you think you should have benefit, ring 0113 222 4404 before the hearing date.

The Court cannot make a payment arrangement with you. Staff from the Council Tax office will be at court 30 minutes before your hearing, you can speak to them if you have not been able to ring up before the hearing date.

Contacts