ChatterBank1 min ago
Small Claims Court
12 Answers
Anyone used small claims court against city council?
Is this possible?
Trying to claims council tax refund and there seems to be no one working at the council to deal with the refunds. Tried email, letters, spoken to the customer service, tried local councillors. All non help to recover a few hundreds of pounds.
Is this possible?
Trying to claims council tax refund and there seems to be no one working at the council to deal with the refunds. Tried email, letters, spoken to the customer service, tried local councillors. All non help to recover a few hundreds of pounds.
Answers
Best Answer
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I was receiving the maximum discount on my Council Tax bill due to my ow income. Then my circumstances changed, marginally for the better, so I immediately wrote to the relevant council department, with exact dates and figures quoted in my letter.
My next Council Tax bill still showed the maximum discount though, so I assumed that my income remained below the threshold for me to have to pay the full amount.
However att the very end of the tax year, the council sent me a demand for a full year's Council Tax, which had to be paid as a lump sum (i.e. with no option to make monthly payments).
I contacted my local councillor, stating that I felt that I'd been treated unfairly, as getting such a large bill out of the blue meant that I'd have to use a very expensive credit card to make the payment. She contacted the Head of Finance at the local council, resulting in my entire bill for a year's Council Tax being entirely written off (and thus saving me over a thousand quid).
So, rather than going via the Small Claims Process, I strongly suggest that, in the first instance at least, you should contact your local councillor. You're far more likely to get a swift resolution to your problem than by going through the courts - and it won't cost you anything either!
My next Council Tax bill still showed the maximum discount though, so I assumed that my income remained below the threshold for me to have to pay the full amount.
However att the very end of the tax year, the council sent me a demand for a full year's Council Tax, which had to be paid as a lump sum (i.e. with no option to make monthly payments).
I contacted my local councillor, stating that I felt that I'd been treated unfairly, as getting such a large bill out of the blue meant that I'd have to use a very expensive credit card to make the payment. She contacted the Head of Finance at the local council, resulting in my entire bill for a year's Council Tax being entirely written off (and thus saving me over a thousand quid).
So, rather than going via the Small Claims Process, I strongly suggest that, in the first instance at least, you should contact your local councillor. You're far more likely to get a swift resolution to your problem than by going through the courts - and it won't cost you anything either!