A copy of my letter to the ‘designated officer for a magistrates court’ or West Dorset Council employee- both the same!!
Dear Jill Lurt /Lunt [photocopied surname not distinguishable].
My understanding is, that you are the West Dorset District Council revenues manager; supervisor and legal advisor according to the photocopied document I hold and your colleague Ms Mead advice. Are you a designated officer for the HMCS or an employee of WDDC? I tried to discuss this case with you last week, regrettably you were not available at all.
I would like to inform the clerk at Weymouth Court via West Dorset District Council email that I will not be attending court on the 5TH September 2016. The reason is because of the following I have cleared the Council Tax arrears of £66.74 in full more than two weeks ahead of the hearing.
The arrears came about due to a mistake made by the Council Tax team.
In March when my partner and I moved into 2 Wayside Cottages my landlord only gave my name to the Council Tax team. When my partner contacted the council in May he changed the account to a jointly named one. At the same time he made a payment of £120 to clear any arrears. He was told at the time that this payment alongside the on-going direct debit meant that nothing else needed to be paid or done.
As far as we were both concerned that was it.
On Friday 19th August I then received a court summons from the WDDC council stating I owed £66.74 plus an extra £40 court costs. When we rang up to query this it came to light that when the account was turned into a joint one a different reference number was used. So when my partner paid the £120 and set up the direct debit the person he was dealing with in the council tax team did not include the £60 that was owed.
This was not our fault this happened. It was an error made by the council tax team. Because of this we would respectfully request the Judge that we are not given the liability of the £40 court costs as I feel the council are to blame for the mistake and should be accountable.
The first we knew about the issue was when we got the court summons. We did not receive any letters concerning this matter before the summons.
Additionally, please provide the exact legislation including section and subsection that allows you to issue your own court summons with magistrates court headings and photocopied signatures.
Do all council officers need to swear an oath? and if so do they need to swear the oath annually?
What is the oath? Who do the officers swear the oath to? “A summons may be issued by a justice, the justices’ clerk or a member of the clerks staff with delegated powers contained in the Justice Clerk Rules 2005. ‘A summons must be issued in accordance with Justice Clerks Rules 2005 (S.I.2005 No.545) The granting of summonses is more than a rubber stamping exercise. The person issuing the summons must be authorised to do so and must scrutinise the information to satisfy themselves that the requirements are met and a summons properly granted.
Nowhere in the above regulations does it state that a Local Council can issue and/or send out a Court Summons. As West Dorset County Council issues and sends out numerous Court Summons’s each year relating to Council Tax, can you tell me if it is lawful for you to issue Court Summons with magistrates court letter headings and photocopied signatures, Can you also quote the passage from the rule/regulation/law which states a local Council can issue Court Summons’s and demand costs for obtaining summons. Moreover, please provide me with evidence of the actual cost to WDDC in seeking a single Court Summons in relation to unpaid Council Tax in the current financial year, if the taxpayer makes an arrangement to pay and is not required in Court as a result.
The figure I am interested in is the charge made by HMCS to the Council when sending a Summons to an individual in relation to a Council Tax demand on behalf of the Council. I am not asking for the costs involved in making arrangements with or writing to taxpayers after the Summons has been issued as these are subject other factors.
The summonses sent out for council tax are printed by the council and the court is hired for the liability “hearings”. .
The court is hired by the council for the hearings and then the councils send out “Notifications” of a liability order , again printed by themselves. This means of course that no liability is recorded by the court. This article from way back in 2009 seems to be a damage limitation exercise stating that on some occasions the summonses were not properly issued. This is a result of what a few people were doing challenging their local councils on issuing their own summonses.
No court is going to take on the issue that all summonses issued by councils are invalid, defective and fraudulent. There must however be one judge out there who will make a legitimate ruling on this. As the country is bankrupt , does it matter? Judges have recently been forced into accepting remedies which previously they would not have dreamed the public would find out about!
Stuart Sixtyseven
