Hounslow Council recently contacted me (May 2012) to say that I owed £525 for council tax owed back in the year 2000. What had happened is that I moved out of a rented flat and moved to an address in the same block as the landlord had decided to sell the property. We promptly registered that we were moving to a new flat with the council and immediately without a pause began paying council tax on the new property. Hounslow acknowledge this and can see the record of this taking place. However, they are claiming that we did not de-register from the previous address and are claiming for a period of 6 months council tax unpaid. In speaking with them they are asking me to show my tenancy agreement from over 10 years ago (which I have zero record of) and I cannot track the landlord from 10+ years ago. I am stuck and the council will not see reason. Apparently they had a summons issued against me and my flatmate back in 2001 for the outstanding bill. We never received any communications that this was going on and Hounslow tell me that it is only now that they have been able to trace me - despite the fact that they had a record of me living at another address in Hounslow until 2003 and also me being on the electoral register since then and having lived at the same address for a property I bought for the past 8 years. Its extremely frustrating as if they had contacted me earlier I would have perhaps had records of things - but since they have taken so long it is now extremely difficult for me to do anything. They have a baliff now pressed into action and I feel very very down about the whole thing. I dont have the £525 spare right now and I really dont feel that I owe it. If anything the landlord of the property has been unscrupulous in not forwarding the mail at the time and also he should have been liable for the council tax. I have requested now that the council provide an original copy of the letter sent to them registering us at the new address and evidence of their attempts to contact me in the past 10 years. But to be honest unless the original form shows that I notified them that I was moving out of a place and moving into another place (and not just the latter) then I do not know what to do. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to how to fight this? Many thanks

Hi all, Didn't realise this forum was for income tax stuff too, but I'll keep this a separate post. Basically I've been renting out a small second home (my first house, still fully mortgaged, in negative equity) since mid - late 2007 and (I think) have overall made some money from it, but didn't realise until this morning that I should have been paying tax on it. (Was trying to get my head around a separate problem and found a leaflet on the HMRC website.) This time of letting the other house overlaps a period when I was employed full time on PAYE tax, as well as a long period off-sick when I had no other income barring Incapacity benefit., and then more recently I've come off the benefits and started work as self employed too. Basically what should I do? I was going to get an accountant to look through the figures and ask their advice as to the best solution. HMRC hasn't come after me for it, but I want it sorting now before things get any worse (if they can?) It could be as much as £6,000 (over the period) before maintenance costs etc. are deducted. Do I need a solicitor as well as an accountant? Oh dear, I'm having a bad week! Thanks for any help or advice you can offer, Paul.

I currently rent a property privately and have had a number if issues with it, to the point were i have served notice that should the landlord fail to action repairs with 7 days it will be raising action with prhpscotland.gov.uk So to cut a long story short we are about to leave and don't trust the land lord to return the deposit as in Scotland we dont yet have a tenancy deposit scheme. Am i within my right to do so? I have done it before and the Landlord was less than happy and set her lawyer on me who after a phone call from me agreed it was not worth perusing until we had left the property and then it would depend on state of the place etc. Herd nothing more so .......

Hey guys, I have an urgent problem. I moved into my Private rented property in 2007, when we moved in we noticed that there was some dry rot starting on the wooden window frames. I immediately reported this to the Estate Agents who in turn reported this to the Landlord. I then reported this every month for nearly 2 years but as the frames were still intact the LL wasn't interested in repairing or replacing them. 3 months ago the inside of the window frame at the top completely rotted away and the frame was crumbling away, we immediately reported this to the Estate agents who said it took 2 days to contact the LL as she was unreachable. They eventually sent someone round to repair the problem, when the builder arrived he said that the LL had given him £40.00 (fourty pounds) to do the repair? When he arrived all he did was cut out the worst part of the rot and put a new peice of wood into replace it and told me it was just a temporary fix until the LL decided wether she could afford to replace the windows. Needless to say we got no return. This morning there was a loud crash. I went out into the garden to see that the top of the window frame has completely rotted away. There is a strip of wood that was secured to the window frame which held the drainage guttering in place, now that the window has fully rotten away the strip has nothing to secure too and all the guttering has fallen away and is hanging by a thread. What also concerns me is that the glass in the window is now hanging on by nothing more than hopes and dreams. You can feel the wind blowing through as the glass is now completely exposed at the top. I have put some plastic over the window to try and keep heat inside the house only a major concern is it's snowing outside and bitterly cold with temps expecting to get colder and I have a 9 month old baby. I spoke to the estate agents 3 hrs ago who said they would contact me back as soon as they got hold of the LL but so far no reply. My questions are: 1. Where do I stand legally in ensuring that the work is carried out this time to an acceptable status and not just another temporary repair? 2. If no satisfactory result can I demand to be rehoused? 3. Where do I stand if the LL refuses to carry out the works? 4. Can I legally request that they refund my Security deposit so that I can find a warm and suitable property for my family to reside in? Thanks in advance guys, I'm at wits end and just want to keep the warmth inside and the elements outside especially as far as the baby is concerned.