Council Tax

How I'd imagined Birmingham Council Tax team to appear on Monday mornings

Have you ever had a situation where your council have incorrectly billed you and take an enormous amount of time to get back to  you - never mind resolve the situation?

Have you ever become frustrated with local government civil service ineptitude, broken record response, their lack of productivity and their incredible inefficiency?

Have you ever received threatening letters from the council, perhaps attempting to coerce you into overpaying something with the threat of a court appearance?

Well, I may have a couple of pointers to help you out.

In the first instance, obviously try and get the other party to engage in the issue and make reasonable attempt to move the situation along. For example, I tried phoning the council and was told I couldn't close the account and get a final bill until I provided the next tenants details. As I no way of knowing this and they wouldn't take the management agents details, I was told there was "nothing we can do" by the person on the other end of the phone.

Even though I told him that it simply wasn't my problem and followed it up in an email to confirm, they still tried bill me after I had vacated the property. I even explained that no other city I've lived in has ever tried such a ridiculous trick to save themselves investigating the deeds.

So ... what next?

Firstly, take the name at the bottom of the automated council tax letter you've just been unnecessarily sent - Usually its from someone nominally senior to make the letter more official, threatening court action if you don't comply. In my example it was stamped from Chris Gibbs, the Assistance Director of Revenues and Benefits.

You'll need the domain name they use as well - Do a web search for "[insert city name in here] council tax" and it should be amongst the top results - it'll usually be the same as the council tax website where you live. In my example its "birmingham.gov.uk".

Put that aside and try the usual routes of approach - I tend to avoid spending my own money on hold over the phone with various departments, who only tell me to fill out a form; and email directly. Don't expect rapid responses but it means you're getting everything in writing.

In this case it took a fortnight just to reply to an email.

Now when this inevitably fails - After hearing every excuse under the sun no to add single person occupancy discount, or close the account due to you moving out, etc, start forwarding snarky emails to the semi-important nominee you found on your letter.

Try the following:

• firstname.surname@domain name
• [letter of firstname].surname@domain name
• [letter of firstname]surname@domain name
• firstname_surname@domain name
• ...and so on.

You'll end up with an email with a lot of recipients perhaps - try about five at a time. When one of the addresses does not return a failed recipient error email from the council email server you'll have found the right email address.

In my example it was as simple as chris.gibbs@birmingham.gov.uk - as you can see from the email I eventually got from his PA.

Now and then you may get the occasional attempt at derailment, or just plain mishaps with technology...such as your email vanishing in a puff of smoke. Example here. Apparently between replying to my email acknowledging receipt and then actually getting around to looking at it / forwarding it, the content had vanished. Electronic trickery. Clearly sorcery at work.

Finally, after five months end-to-end, malcontent with the situation and happy to demonstrate the level of ineffectualness to the courts; the council emailed me back. Very forthright and here it is.

I've waited a while to respond and ensured more people had access to the email address - Maybe it might help the council deal with queries faster - It certainly got past the evasive and disinclined lower ranks of the city council for me.

So all it took to add single person occupancy discount to the council tax bill and close the account in order to send me a final bill was my prompting, cajoling, returning legal threats in kind, involving the department deputy head for five months.

It took six minutes to pay in full electronically from my tablet.

Even now Chris' department are attempting to coerce me into paying council tax for a period after I moved out. Guess its time for another email...

Update 2015

After a few months of hearing nothing I got a bit suspicious - I'd created enough attention now that the issue would surely be resolved (only took a year). Unfortunately it had: The council had ignored my proof and raised a claim in the courts without notifying me. By the time I found out about it a collections agency contacted me. I'm not sure how legal that was because I would have been extremely happy to represent myself in the courts - after all, plenty of public evidence.

My advice here would be to email and call every week for an update to check that your council weren't trying to pull a fast one, I didn't and got caught out procedurally.

The net result was that I had to pay for the con-job letting agents portion of the bill as well as my own. I suppose it was more the principal of it than anything else as the money involved was negligible (only around £200) but local government defeated me by knowing how to take advantage of the system in order to absorb their own broken processes.

However, if you fall foul of a similar situation don't forget; don't waste your time with the 9-5 mob at BCC as they'll just have you chasing your own tail. Go straight to Chris Gibbs so you can get a response, and he can be reached at: chris.gibbs@birmingham.gov.uk - best of luck.