Northumberland bids to recover £9m unpaid council tax

Jun 25 2009 by David Black, The Journal

Case study: Grandmother wrongly threatened with court action

GRANDMOTHER Thelma Malecki was left furious after getting a letter threatening her with court action over unpaid council tax – even though she had paid her monthly bill five days earlier.

The 75-year-old widow was warned in the county council letter that unless she paid the ‘overdue’ £71 within seven days, her total annual bill of £568 would become due for payment. It went on to say that if the full balance was not paid after a further seven days a court summons would be issued.

The letter infuriated Thelma, of Juliet Street, Ashington, as she has never defaulted on her council tax and had paid the June instalment at her local post office earlier that week.

She is one of many residents who have been sent letters wrongly stating they have failed to pay their council tax. The errors have been blamed by the council on the introduction of a single new system aimed at simplifying the collection procedure and ensuring that as much council tax as possible is collected.

Yesterday Thelma said: "I paid my council tax on June 15 so I was upset and disgusted to get this letter on the June 19 threatening court action. When I phoned up about it the young man just kept repeating that I had to pay on the first of each month. I pay my electricity and gas on the first but I can’t afford to pay everything then, so I just told him they would have to take me to court.

"As long as they are getting the money in, how can they write and say I am in arrears? I felt awful when I got the letter and felt like saying to the council, why don’t they go after the people who are not paying at all?"

County council bosses have apologised to people wrongly accused of not paying, saying problems have been caused by having to merge six different council tax collection databases operated by the former district councils.