It wouldn't include Council Tax if an HMO. The landlord is always liable. Extract below from City of Edinburgh Council If you live in a ‘house in multiple occupation’ (HMO): there will be one Council Tax bill for the whole house and the owner or landlord/landlady will be liable. An HMO is where different households occupy the same building but share certain facilities such as a bathroom or kitchen. A house converted into bedsits would normally be an HMO, but a self-contained flat, where the only shared area is an entrance or hall and stairs, will usually be treated as a separate dwelling for Council Tax purposes.

MarcusmeiIf the dwelling was an HMO the landlord would be liable for Council Tax

What low cost airlines normally do with a name change is to charge an admin fee plus the difference in the cost of the flight between when it was booked and when the name change was notified. Some airlines even charge the admin fee for each sector so if, for instance, you are taking two flights each direction that would be £30 x 4 plus the difference in price. I once had to do a name change and it was going to cost £360, £20 dearer than just making a fresh booking!

Council Tax is governed by Summary Warrant legislation. There isn't a court case as the Sheriff is presented with a list (often with thousands of names) of all Council Tax accounts which the Local Authority wishes to pursue having defaulted on payment. The Sheriff signs the front of the list and this gives the local authority the right to do "diligence" against the debtor e.g. wage arrestments, bank arrestments and attachments. The Council will hold on to the warrant for a few weeks to see if the customer pays. If no payment is received the Council will use a Debt Collection Agency usually with a Sheriff Officers arm to negotiate with the customer, and failing that will enforce the diligence.

Have GCC told you why they think you had a liability after Feb 05? Did the other tenants stay on in the property after you left? If they did and your name was on the tenancy agreement they may be using that as a basis for pursuing you. Any chance that your former landlord could provide the evidence that GCC are after? Contacting your MSP was a good idea. With elections coming up next year they will be going out of their way to help constituents. The MSP's intervention and the fact that you can show that you have a Council Tax liability for another address for the period should do the trick. Best of luck!

I don't know that I understand how they are hitting him for £80,000 for next year. The charge won't be decided until February and bills go out after that. Are your father's tenants renting individual rooms or entire properties? If they are only renting rooms then the properties will be deemed to be homes in multiple occupation in which case your father would be liable for the Council tax.

If it is a consumer debt they would have to pursue you in Scotland. If it isn't, e.g. debt from a business contract it would depend on the terms of the contract.

Although everyone has to have a "sole or main" residence not everyone has a Council Tax liability. An example being grown up kids still living with parents who own the home. You could argue that as you have never lived at your daughter's home it cannot be deemed as being your sole or main residence. Your only real connection is that your mail goes there. The mortgage issue, I would argue, is not relevant as it is not uncommon for a parent or child to have a financial interest in a family member's property e.g. child putting up the money for parents to buy their Council House. I was once involved in a case where a couple returning to the UK bought a house. The wife came home first and the husband followed 6 months later. She claimed for and was granted a 25% single occupancy discount on the grounds that although they both owned the property it could not be regarded as his sole or main residence until he actually moved into the house. It may be worth your while approaching the Council with this arguement. A lot of Council Tax legislation is open to interpretation and you never know you may be able to persuade them. You would not be entitled to Council Tax Benefit at your daughter's address as you have never been resident in the property.

It may be worth contacting the Council who instructed Adamson to explain the circumstances. Emphasize your good payment record and they may intervene. If they do you would probably have to pay for the arrestment fee.

As the debt is in Scotland there would not be a Liability Order which is a feature of English legislation. Under Council Tax regulations everyone must have a "sole or main residence". If your partner did not register for Council Tax when moving around and still had a connection with the property in question (tenancy or ownership) Fife would deem that as being his sole or main residence.

An HMO is usually one dwelling occupied by a number of people each with individual leases with the landlord, key to your own room etc. If your landlord owns a block of flats and you live in one of these it wouldn't count as being an HMO as you occupy the whole dwelling. You should contact your Council. They will have a good idea of whether your home is an HMO or not. As a "time being" tenant you would still be liable for Council Tax as you would be regarded as a licensee (see hierarchy in previous post).

The following link takes you to details of the debt arrangement scheme. This may be a solution. http://www.moneyscotland.gov.uk/das/MoneyScotland/Debt_Arrangement_Scheme__DAS_/DAS_Homepage

As long as the home is your sole or main residence responsibility for Council Tax would lie with the tenant regardless of the terms of the tenancy agreement. The exceptions being a home in multiple occupation or a dwelling occupied by asylum seekers where the landlord is always liable. Council Tax liability is determined by the hierarchy of payers (detailed below). From this it is fairy straightforward to work out whether one is liable or not: "If only one person lives in a property they will be the liable person. If more than one person lives there, a system called the hierarchy of liability is used to work out who is the liable person. The person at the top, or nearest to the top, of the hierarchy is the liable person. Two people at the same point of the hierarchy will both be liable. The hierarchy of liability is: a resident owner-occupier who owns either the leasehold or freehold of all or part of the property a resident tenant a resident who lives in the property and who is a licensee. This means that they are not a tenant, but have permission to stay there any resident living in the property, for example, a squatter an owner of the property where no one is resident."

Did you contact the Council? Stirling Park are collecting the debt on their behalf and can override level being asked for. Looking at the amount they are trying to make you pay suggests that the Local Authority you come under is keen to ingather as much of the debt as possible within the current financial year and have instructed Stirling Park to make arrangements on that basis. Speak to someone within the Revenues section of the Council, preferably a Team Leader, and explain your situation and the fact that you have already made a payment (it sometimes takes a while for these payments to show on your Council Tax account). You will also probably have to show how you will be able to pay towards the arrears and maintain next year's Council Tax when it starts. If that fails speak to your local councillor. They are usually fairly influential in cases like this.

The 10% charge may be theirs but 10% of nothing unfortunately is nothing. Once the summary warrant is signed by the Sheriff the10% charge is intitially the Council's. They will normally hold on to the debt for around six weeks and most will try to work the debt themselves. The debt will then be passed on to the likes of Stirling Park. The only income they derive is if they collect on the debt or do dilligence. If they fail to collect after a given period normally negotiated between the Council and the DCA/Sheriff Officers the debt is then often second placed with another debt collection firm. If local authorities actually handed over 10% of the debt in monetary terms that passed to DCA/Sheriff Officers they would quickly become bankrupt.

Their fees are only covered if they collect on the debt. If they are passed an account there is no guarantee that payments will be made and consequently they receive nothing in the way of commission. That's why they normally send out a letter first.

I would be very surprised if Stirling Park did not accept your offer. If, on the off chance, they didn't you could always go back to the Council and ask to speak to a team leader. Explain your circumstances and the offer that you had made. In the scheme of things that is a pretty reasonable offer and you shouldn't have a problem having it accepted. I'm surprised that Stirling Park sent Sheriff Officers out. They would normally send a standard letter out first as this is considerably cheaper than sending out a couple of officers.

Anything that builds up a picture of your residence in Dumfries would help. Your wage slips certainly would as would documents from the Job Centre. Other things they might look for would be bank statements, receipts for any purchases showing your address and details of where you were registered for the doctor and dentist. Try to look out the oldest documents as these will show when you started living in Dumfries It seems that your former flatmate may not have let Aberdeen City council know of your student status. One would normally have to apply for a student exemption and details of your course would have been asked for at the time (unless the University supplied a list of all students to the Council). Your appearance on the electoral roll for 2006/2007 will show that you weren't in Aberdeen and the fact that your girlfriend was not claiming single person discount on the Council Tax account would back up your position.

With regard to your last point, yes they can. You would have been jointly and severally responsible for the debt. This means that if they can only find you they will try to recover all of the debt from you. When you and your former flatmate were students did you apply for an exemption from Council Tax? As a student neither of you would have had a Council Tax liability for the period. That would cover the time between you becoming resident and then leaving. Did you inform the Council when you gave up the flat? If not for the subsequent period it is quite likely that the landlord failed to advise the local authority that you were no longer there. He/she may have either been too lazy to notify the change or might have kept quiet to avoid the Council Tax liability reverting to him/her. If the Council does not have a record of your student status it should be possible for you to obtain one from your former university. The fact that you were on the electoral roll at your girlfriends home will also demonstrate that you were living elsewhere and local authorities do use this information when trying determine liability . The only hiccup might be if she was claiming a single person discount at the time. Armed with this information you should contact the Council directly and point out their error. I know you are reluctant to contact Aberdeen City Council but you also say that you have a tendency to worry about things so I suppose you have to balance one against the other. Given that you can prove your student status and your whereabouts at the time I would expect that the Council would act on the information you provided. Your credibility would be further established if you point out that you contacted them despite the Council getting your name wrong!

Under the terms of your bankrupcty you are not allowed to obtain credit over £500 without telling the lender that you are bankrupt. Failure to do so may be a criminal offence. However given that you have now paid the loan back it would be unlikely that your trustee would ever get wind of your breach.

You would both be jointly and severally liable for the Council Tax liability as you were the wife/partner of the tenant.

It may be an idea to go on to the Edinburgh Gazette website (link below) and print off details of your Trust Deed. you could then send it with a covering letter to Scot Call to confirm that you are not liable for this debt. http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/

He is bluffing. Sheriff Officers cannot become involved unless he has raised an action in the Sheriff Court and obtained decree (judgement in his favour). If he did raise an action you would then be able to submit your defence or put in a counter claim and the Sheriff would then decide on the merits of each party's case.

As you are in Scotland there won't have been a Liability Order. In addition there are no bailiffs either. If you are being pursued by a debt collection agency this means that the Local Authority has obtained a Summary Warrant for the debt and passed it on to the DCA. This will have added an extra 10% to the outstanding balance and also allows the Sheriff Officer arm of the DCA to do diligence such as bank and wage arrestments. Unfortunately I think that even if you did find that your lease included an agreement that your Council Tax was included in your rent the Local Authority would regard that as an arrangement between yourself and your landlord and would still make you liable for the Council Tax debt.

If your Trust Deed were to be unprotected it would not stop creditors pursuing you. If you took out loans together you would be jointly and severally liable for these and your creditors would still be able to go after the party that had not been declared bankrupt. Hope this helps.