FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Non-Payment Can Mean Prison!

By Jane Mack (TMFJane)
June 18, 2002

The other day an acquaintance of mine mentioned in passing that he was due in court on Thursday for non-payment of council tax. Rather a lot of non-payments actually. He took a stand when Margaret Thatcher tried to introduce Poll Tax in the late eighties and has mostly managed to avoid paying anything ever since. So far he's been lucky to get away with it or else the council in the London borough where he lives has been particularly lax in chasing him up.

It must be a bit of both since he currently owes around £10,000!

He felt that the worst they could do was send him to prison for a few days and, besides, it would be worth it because the debt would be expunged when he came out. Never having been to prison before, he was contemplating writing a book about his experiences inside and was rather looking forward to being 'sent down' for a bit.

I haven't a clue whether anybody would be interested in publishing his book but it's absolutely true that he could be sent to prison. It's also true that serving time would indeed pay off his debt to the Council. This is rather unusual. If you're sent to prison for non-payment of a court fine, for example, the debt will still be waiting for you when you get out. Not so with Council Tax. And since the maximum they can imprison you for is 90 days, to some people it might seem a small price to pay. My acquaintance seems to think so anyway.

Now we all know that it's supposed to be the threat of prison that nudges the recalcitrant debtor to come up with a solution – it's not supposed to be the solution itself. And I'm not sure my friend realised that councils have many other ways of getting their council tax and some of them can have far-reaching effects that go beyond a short spell in the nick.

When you fall into arrears, the procedure goes something like this:

First of all they'll issue you with a summons to appear in the magistrates court where, if you still can't or won't make an arrangement to pay, a liability order will be granted.

This will enable them to make an Attachment of Earnings Order on your salary or to take a proportion of certain state benefits you might be receiving. Alternatively they can send in the bailiffs. The latter course of action is probably the quickest route to getting their money.

However, bailiffs are in quite a curious position because although they have the authority to seize goods up to the value of the money you owe to sell at auction, they're not allowed to force their way into your home. They can climb in through an open window if they locate one but, ultimately, if you don't let them into the house, they can't do anything about it.

This is the stage my acquaintance has reached. He doesn't work and nor does he receive income support so the council can't get their money that way. And he hasn't let the bailiffs in. So he's now received a committal summons to get him back into court so they can fully assess his financial circumstances.

It's at this juncture that he might find himself hoist by his own petard. He owns some property, you see, and council has the power to either force its sale or put a charge on it so that when it is eventually sold they can reclaim their money. Alternatively they could make him bankrupt and that might also result in him losing some or all of the property.

It's easy to see why our rather misguided acquaintance is hoping for prison. He keeps all his property and instantly gets shot of a £10,000 debt. But I can't help thinking that the magistrates will have other ideas.

At any rate, it's worth remembering when you're in debt that your priority payments are not just to the mortgage so you can keep a roof over your head, but also to the ubiquitous Council Tax.

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