Ensuring customers are not subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs or hardship

The request was successful.

Dear Brentwood Borough Council,

A council taxpayer who owes more than just the current year's liability runs the risk of incurring additional recovery costs through a further application for a liability order if payments which are intended for the current year's liability are allocated by the council's computer to the previous year's liability. This would most likely happen where a non specific payment is made and the computer software is set to automatically allocate these payments to the oldest year's debt.

Councils computer systems have the necessary flexibility to be set to allow non specific payments to be allocated to the arrears or the current year's liability.

I understand that the majority of billing authorities have their computer software set to ensure that their customers are not subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs or hardship, i.e. so non specific payments are allocated to the current year's liability.

How does Brentwood Borough Council have its computer software set to deal with non specific payments. Current or oldest year's liability?

Yours faithfully,

Gwyn Worth

FOI, Brentwood Borough Council

Thank you for your request.

 

This has been passed onto the appropriate FOI officer and your request
will be dealt with as soon as possible.

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FOI, Brentwood Borough Council

Many thanks for your FOI request.

I can confirm non-specific payments of Council Tax are automatically allocated to the oldest year’s liability.

I hope this has helped answer your enquiry, however, if you are unhappy with the way your request for Information has been handled you may request a review by writing to:

The FOI Co-ordinator
Brentwood Borough Council
Town Hall
Ingrave Road
Brentwood
Essex
CM15 8AY

If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request you have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone 08456 30 60 60

Or 01625 54 57 45

Website www.ico.gov.uk

Zὅe Borman | Corporate Services Officer | Brentwood Borough Council
T 01277 312736 |  www.brentwood.gov.uk | [email address]

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Dear FOI,

Thank you for confirming that 'non-specific payments of Council Tax are automatically allocated to the oldest year’s liability'.

Would you please confirm whether or not any measures are in place to check that allocating an unmatched payment to the oldest debt in these circumstances would have the consequences of putting the current year's liability also in arrears, and if so, in accordance with R. v Miskin Lower Justices [1953] 1 Q.B. 533, whether the payment would be moved in respect of the current year's account to avoid unnecessary recovery action, additional costs etc.?

Yours sincerely,

Gwyn Worth

Dear FOI,

Will you please acknowledge receipt of my 10 November 2017 request/clarification.

Yours sincerely,

Gwyn Worth

FOI, Brentwood Borough Council

Thank you for your request.

 

This has been passed onto the appropriate FOI officer and your request
will be dealt with as soon as possible.

FOI, Brentwood Borough Council

Dear Mr Worth

FOI 14835

I acknowledge receipt of your email dated 10 November and 17 January.

With reference to the recent request, please note the following response:

Where there are multiple years of Council Tax outstanding measures are taken to transfer instalment payments when it appears they are/were intended for the current year.
Checks are carried out on various enforcement stages to ensure that the payment relates to that stage (i.e attachment of earnings/benefit or payments from an enforcement agent)
Measures are taken to avoid Chargepayers incurring additional recovery action and costs unnecessarily, but it is not possible to confirm all unmatched payments are checked.

I hope this answers your query. Please contact me again if you require further assistance.

if you are unhappy with the way your request for Information has been handled you may request a review by writing to:

The FOI Co-ordinator
Brentwood Borough Council
Town Hall
Ingrave Road
Brentwood
Essex
CM15 8AY

If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request you have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone 08456 30 60 60

Or 01625 54 57 45

Website www.ico.gov.uk

Zὅe Borman | Corporate Support Officer | Brentwood Borough Council
T 01277 312736 |  www.brentwood.gov.uk | [email address]

View our Yearbook at www.brentwood.gov.uk/yearbook

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Dear FOI,

Thank you for clarifying my query. I consider Brentwood Borough Council has provided the information I requested. The purpose of this exercise was to ascertain whether or not the principles surrounding the appropriation of payments were being adhered to.

R v Miskin Lower Justices (1953)

It was held in R v Miskin Lower Justices, that where an amount obviously relates to a specific liability, it would be an unwarranted assumption to allocate the payment elsewhere.

If no instruction is given at the time of payment, then the council has a duty to allocate payment to the account which it is most beneficial to the debtor to reduce. That would be in the majority of cases the current liability if the consequences of allocating payment to the arrears meant that the customer was subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs etc.

I understand by the council's response (see *NOTE*) that there are measures in place to ensure that unspecified payments are allocated to the account which it is least burdensome for the debtor, and consequently the laws surrounding the appropriation of payments are being complied with. This effectively means that an unmatched payment allocated to the oldest debt (having the consequences of putting the current year's liability also in arrears) would be reallocated to the current year's liability on account of the circumstances implying that this was the debtor's intention (least burdensome for the debtor). If it appears I have misunderstood anything from what I have stated I would appreciate if you would correct me.

*NOTE*: "Where there are multiple years of Council Tax outstanding measures are taken to transfer instalment payments when it appears they are/were intended for the current year.....Measures are taken to avoid Chargepayers incurring additional recovery action and costs unnecessarily...."

Yours sincerely,

Gwyn Worth