Liability Orders: New regulations have removed the Local Authorities obligation to send a '14 day letter'.

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I write frequent press articles for CCR Public Sector publication. This important publication is read by senior professional workin in finance, collections, revenues, benefits and enforcement and is also read by most government agencies.

 

The link below is to a copy of an article that I wrote for the June 2014 edition and concerns a very serious change that has been made to the Council Tax regualtions whereby a local authority are no longer under a legal obligation to send a debtor a '14 day letter' to advise that a Liability Order has been authorised and that if payment is not made within 14 days that the debt will be referred to an enforcement agent.

 

 

 

 

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The importance of this amendment cannot be over emphasised. Previously (before 6th April) there was a legal requirement for a local authority to send to the debtor a letter advising them that a Liability Order had been granted and giving the debtor 14 days in which to contact the council to pay the debt (or even agree a payment arrangement). That '14 day' letter has now disappeared . Instead, the local authority is now legally permitted to send the account straight to the enforcement agent and legally the enforcement company can charge a Compliance fee of £75.

 

Worryingly, the letter from the enforcement company only needs by law to give the debtor 7 days in which to pay in order to avoid an "enforcement stage" fee of £235.

 

This amendment came as a huge surprise to local authorities and it is fair to say that a lot of councils are very worried indeed. Fortunately, many local authorities will continue to send a '14 day' letter. Whether local authorities that use 'back office' providers such as Capita will do so the same remains to be seen.