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Hi,

Looking for some advise on the below as I have submitted my application for citizenship but now I am a nervous wreck.

I applied last week for my citizenship - absolutely everything in order. This week I just did some background checks to see that all my past council taxes were in order and was surprised to see that my address from 2 years ago had an outstanding balance including a fee for: summons cost council, summons cost justice & liability cost council (the arrears & costs were written off earlier this year from the records). I must not have closed my account properly when I left and obviously never received these summons or liability order. I immediately called up the council, and after they told me how much was outstanding in my name, I paid it immediately, now their is a zero balance on my account.

Can anyone tell me if this might have an affect on my application? I checked for ccjs and don't have any records of anything against my name. I obviously never input any of this on my application from as I was unaware of it.

Any response would be greatly appreciated.

Not familiar with council tax arrears but if you have cleared down the arrears this should be ok. Perhaps a review of your credit reference files is in order, just in case.

alterhase58 wrote:Not familiar with council tax arrears but if you have cleared down the arrears this should be ok. Perhaps a review of your credit reference files is in order, just in case.

Thanks for your response - credit records are in order. My main worry is that because I was not present to receive the summons and respond to it, then this was passed through county court to issue liability order which I was not there for - really hoping this will not count against me. I agree that because I have cleared the full arrears that should be ok - still nervous about it all regardless.

I don't know how it will affect your citizenship application, but I suspect you'll be fine. Here's why:

When I was living in Oxford, I had the misfortune of experiencing the council's incompetence first-hand.* I won't go into the full details of what happened (except to say that it was all their fault, and I eventually got them to admit as much in writing), but it resulted in a spurious liability order being taken out against me for council tax arrears. While trying to get to the bottom of how this could have happened, I learned that these orders tend to be approved at the magistrate's court in batches. I also learned that while the council keeps a record of the individuals' names, the courts do not—the court only records the name of the council.

Assuming things work the same way with your council, I don't believe there will be any record of this that will be held against you now that you've paid the fees and closed the account.

Like I said, I don't know for sure that your application will be unaffected, but based on my own understanding of how these things work, I would guess that you'll be fine.

*I hate them so much that I'm not going to obscure the identity of the council, even though it gives potentially identifying information about me.

Thank you tea rocket. That gives a slight peace of mind that the courts don't record the name and does not count as a ccj. I am just unsure on why the council has my arrears and costs written off on my account online (and when I called them they said i still owed the amount so I paid it) and wandering if they might have filed anything else against me for not responding or getting in touch with them after the liability order was issued (as I was not aware). I heard the next step if they don't hear from you is they normally send bailiffs to recover the money - but my old landlord never mentioned anything to me. They did however have my telephone number and email address but i never received any communication regarding the matter.

I have lived in three council areas in my time in the UK and the only one that I never had a problem with was the one where I spent my undergrad years. I had no trouble because I moved in after my student status began and moved out before it ended. It seems to me that most councils are understaffed and as a result, anyone whose council tax account needs the attention of an actual human, instead of an automated system, has a very high chance of getting screwed somewhere along the line.

My guess is that your arrears amount was small enough that the projected costs of recovering it (via bailiffs or a collections agency) were higher than the amount they could hope to get back, so no one made an effort to find you.

Would you mind sharing the outcome of your application? I'm in a similar position!