We have recently moved in to a property that is treated as two for Council Tax purposes: a main house and a "granny flat". The previous owners used it that way, but we regard it as a single property and will be using the granny flat as overflow bedrooms for when we have large numbers staying. It is not practical to try to rent out the granny flat for reasons of privacy. Under the council tax rules if both of us are registered in one property and the other is shown as empty, we will pay a 50% premium on the empty property. If we register at one property each we get a discount for single occupancy. Do we have a right to do this?

In late 2007 when our business failed we were left owing nearly £100,000 – partly on a business loan and business credit card, but a lot of it was in the form of personal (unsecured) loans and credit cards that we had mainly used to support the business. I was advised that bankruptcy was not a good option as I have a large personal debt that would not be eligible to include in a bankruptcy. CCCS were unable to help us even with the personal loans and credit cards as our income was insufficient to cover our living expenses – still had children at home then. I wrote to all our creditors (by this time mainly DCAs with full details of the situation and offering token payments of between £1 and £10 depending on the size of the debt. Some accepted and some didn’t. Those that did accept we set up DDs to pay every month and those that didn’t accept got nothing. As far as I am aware none of them bothered with CCJs. I am now trying to get on top of the situation and have been checking the bank account and going through paperwork. It seems that 2 of the DCAs, after taking their payments every month for 5 years or so, stopped taking anything about a year ago. The DDs are still active in the bank account but no payments have been taken. Only 3 of the original debts are now claiming these token payments. Another 3 are I think probably statute barred by now (one of these has just started sending chasing letters again). Where do we go from here?