Council tax budget.

[ben102]

Hi,

My council tax is £204 per month over 10 months. When calculating my budget it was worked out over 12 months which gives me £157 per month for council tax.
As council tax is being paid over 10 months does this mean I must pay the shortfall out of my household budget for the first ten months of the year which is already stretched?

Thanks,

[MelanieGiles]

It is usual for council tax to be worked out on a monthly basis - which in your case ought to be £170 not £157. On the basis that you have probably not paid creditors over the last couple of months, do you not have sufficient buffer to cover the higher payments?

[ben102]

I am afraid not for the next ten months or so.
My council tax is £1880 per year but I get charged £205 pm for ten months which doesnt work out as it comes to £2040.

[MelanieGiles]

You need to take that up with the Council. Are you carrying arrears from a previous year?

[ben102]

Hi Melanie,

No arrears. I have just taken over the CT, hence I picked up on it as it was on my wifes name previously.

[flashingblade]

You can change ur council tax from 10 to 12 monthly payments. Just ring ur CT dept up and they will change it. They do 10months as standard but will change it to 12months without question. They did for us.

[MelanieGiles]

That's useful information to share with us - I was not aware that that was possible. Thank you.

[kallis3]

I wasn't aware of that either.

Useful if you are struggling with the 10 months payments.

[ann.s]

We have only ever paid over 12 months since council tax came out, we were offered the chance to pay it over 6,10 or 12 months they also gave us a choice of payment dates, I must say they are quite flexible at our ct office.

[flashingblade]

we were told about it when we went into our IVA, and i just rang up and it was changed without a problem, i think we had 3 months left to pay for that year but they spread it over 5 months, so it can be done half way through the year too.

[chris.g]

Our Council Tax is payable over 12months if you pay direct debit. Quite good as it makes all the difference to the total having an extra 2 month to pay.

[davram1967]

Just a word of warning. Saw these posts about changing council tax payments over 12 months so just enquired about setting it up and were told that this is not at all possible. May be it's different authorities rules but we were told that they don't know of anywhere that allows people to do this!! I'm not saying that any of you that have had this facility set up are telling fibs (why would you?), it's more likely that the people at our council tax office are clueless!!
To make matters worse, while we were there making our payment for August we were informed that we are about to lose our right to pay monthly. Really shocked as we have NEVER EVER missed a council tax payment, despite all of our financial difficulties. The reason being that the payment is due on the 1st of each month and we pay on or around the 20th because that is when I get paid. So far we have received two letters and if we get a third it will be a final demand for the full balance of the year's tax. We were told that they can see that we have never missed a payment yet refused to make any allowance for us to delay our monthly payment until the 20th. What makes it worse is that we know someone who is months in arrears and the council have bent over backwards to help them. Why bother paying at all if you get no help whatsoever until you are in arrears?

[flashingblade]

what area are you in davram?
Im in rotherham south yorkshire, and our CT dept even gives us a choice of three dates in the month when we can pay.

[chris.g]

I didn't know about the 12 months until we moved and I had to set up a new D/D for the CT. It was the advisor that told me, we have since had to re-set it up and agian the advisor asked if we wanted a payment break(10mth) or not......
We live in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear so maybe it is only certain local authorities.....

[davram1967]

We are in Daventry, Northamptonshire. I think it's just the council tax office being a bit clueless or completely unwilling to help. When we said that we had heard of people in other authorities being able to pay over 12 months, they said that there is no such option avaialble, even though the friend of ours in arrears now pays a little extra each month but spread over 12 months and they have been told not to worry about paying on the 1st of each month but to pay when they can. They do the same as us and pay on or around the 20th.
We asked what we could do to stop the letters coming out and all they could say was "pay on the 1st!".