Charity claims council tax changes are feeding bailiff boom
Soaring numbers of people struggle to cope with council tax benefit cuts are feeding fears of a “bailiff boom”, a debt advice charity warns.
Citizens Advice has warned that these changes are putting “many more” vulnerable people in danger of being pushed into the hands of bailiffs, which the charity said often overstated their powers, acted aggressively and piled on excessive fees and charges.
The charity was seeing evidence that the number of people worried about paying their council tax had “rocketed” since the government latest’s round of welfare reforms were introduced in April 2013.
Some 37,000 people consulted its online advice pages about council tax in April – representing an 87 per cent increase compared with the same month last year.
The charity said that anecdotally, increasing numbers of people were coming through the doors of some of its bureaux who were struggling to pay their council tax, although it was too early to give figures at this stage.
Council tax benefit was replaced by council tax support last month, which allows councils in England to decide how to run the scheme in their area but on 10 per cent less funding than they had previously.
Non-payment
Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) recently found that the changes would leave 150,000 families paying an average £300 more a year, while 1.9 million claimants who had not paid anything would be billed an average £140 a year.
The Financial Times recently carried out a survey to gauge the early impact of the council tax changes and found evidence that they were already leading to a rise in non-payment and that authorities had increased the sums set aside to cover bad debts.
Citizens Advice warned that the changes risked stoking a “boom time for bailiffs”.
It was braced for an influx of people being chased by bailiffs after being pushed into arrears by the changes and urged councils to use them only as a “last resort”.
Citizens Advice said it had seen a 38 per cent increase in complaints about private bailiffs over the last five years.
Almost nine in 10 bailiff problems the charity deals with relate to private bailiffs, who collect debts such as council tax and parking penalties. Public bailiffs deal with court fines.
Online advice
One third of the 60,000-plus complaints the charity received in the last financial year about bailiffs were related to people with council tax debts.
More than 20,000 people sought online advice about bailiffs from the charity last month, which was treble the number in April 2012.
The charity’s chief executive, Gillian Guy, said: “Bailiffs will see their profits rise at the expense of hard-pressed households.
“We’re concerned that changes to council tax benefit will mean more people will end up in debt because they can’t pay their bill and have the bailiff knocking at the door.
“The number of people worried about council tax is up 87 per cent since the changes came in, and this will climb even higher as more people find it difficult to cope with the costs.
“Bailiffs often overstate their powers, deliberately frighten debtors and charge extortionate fees.”
Citizens Advice wants councils to sign up to a “good practice” document which was drawn up jointly with the Local Government Association (LGA) and aims to strengthen co-operation between councils and debt advice bodies and lessen the chances of councils turning to bailiffs.