David Obote, 43, remembers the sinking feeling he had when a bailiff arrived at his door over the £6,000 debt he owed to St Albans Council in Hertfordshire.
“I did tell them not to mention it in front of my daughter,” he told The i Paper.
“But they turned up quite early as she was on her way school.”
What followed was a tense stand-off where the bailiff threatened to seize property, and Obote maintained his right not to allow the man to enter his home.
Eventually, the bailiff left empty-handed but the visit was distressing for both Obote and his daughter.
“They completely broke me, the system broke me,” he added.
It is a scenario campaigners fear is only set to become more common as the Government allows authorities across England to ramp up their council tax rates once again from April.
‘We’re worried about more tax rises in April’
Labour has announced new investment worth more than £5.6bn over the next three years in what has been described as a “record-breaking” package aimed at fixing the financial crisis in local government.
But the funding comes on the assumption that authorities will also hike council tax by the maximum 5 per cent legally permitted without a referendum.
A further seven councils – Worcestershire, Shropshire, North Somerset, Trafford, Warrington, Windsor and Maidenhead and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole – have been given permission to increase council tax by as much as 9 per cent due to their perilous financial situation.
This is well above the current rate of inflation, which was 3.4 per cent in December and is expected to fall further by the end of 2026.
Grace Brownfield, head of influencing and communications at the charity Money Advice Trust, says there are many people who simply will not be able to afford it.
“We’re very worried about what the impact of rises in April in council tax is going to be on people who are already struggling,” she said.
The MAT runs two phone lines, the National Debtline and the Business Debt Line, and helps around 200,000 people each year across both.
Demand is soaring – January saw the charity experience its five busiest days ever in the same month.
And around a quarter of the people they help have council tax debt, a proportion which has increased from just 15 per cent in 2010.
The overall arrears owed to councils in England hit £6.6bn last year – an average of £263 for every household in the country. The MAT estimates 2.2 million households were in council tax arrears as of last March.
A further £260m is owed in Wales and £1.5bn in Scotland – where authorities will set their council tax rises in the coming weeks.
Council tax debts ‘getting more severe’
Brownfield says what has been noticeable more recently is the debt problems people are presenting with have become “more severe and more difficult”.
On average, those helped by the National Debtline owe £2,000 in council tax. Just five years ago it was £1,200.
Campaigners, including TV presenter Martin Lewis, have long complained that the biggest problem with council tax debt is how aggressively it can be pursued.
Although most people pay their annual bill monthly, authorities are allowed to demand the amount in full after just one missed payment.
If people are unable to pay, councils can apply to a magistrates’ court for a liability order.
The orders give local authorities wide-ranging powers to recover money, including sending in bailiffs, deducting cash directly from wages or benefits, forcing the sale of a home or even having a debtor sent to prison.
The i Paper has previously reported how the number of liability orders sought by councils has increased by almost 20 per cent in the past four years to around 5,300 per day.
Obote has worked in transport management for most of his career and says he was financially stable until relatively recently.
He says he ended up in arrears over his council tax because of difficulties in his personal life, including a difficult separation from the mother of his child and an expensive custody battle.
“Things just sort of spiralled from there,” he said.
Obote said he found St Albans Council unsympathetic to his circumstances and inflexible when it came to trying to repay his debts.
“Straight away I looked at my finances and I said to them, ‘what you’re asking of me, I cannot afford,’” he said.
“It’s immense pressure, and it’s something that’s sort of crushing, really, really crushing,” he said.
St Albans Council disputes the claim that it was not sympathetic to Obote, who says he was left suicidal over his debts.
“I told them [the council] about it, and they were basically just saying, ‘well, pay the money, pay the money,’” he claimed.
‘I can’t sleep, I can’t see a way out’
Brownfield says the charity’s call handlers are frequently dealing with people in extreme distress over debts.
“People are coming to us and saying, ‘I can’t sleep, I really can’t see a way out of this,’” she said.
The Government is currently consulting on making changes to council tax practices and the MAT is among those calling for wide-ranging reform, including removing the power to send people to prison, a threat which is rarely used but yet often repeated to those in debt.
The MAT has submitted a report titled “Lost in the system” which found that 68 per cent of those with council tax debt also had an additional vulnerability such as low income or a disability.
It also revealed more than half of those in council tax said they went without food as a result. A similar number borrowed money or took out further credit to pay off the debt, while more than a third used less energy, turned off the heating or stopped having showers.
“This isn’t people who are saying, ‘I don’t want to pay my council tax,'” said Brownfield.
“This is people juggling constantly the bills that they’ve got because their budgets are so tight and trying to make decisions on how to stay on top of things.”
A Government spokesperson said: “Anyone experiencing difficulty paying their council tax bill should contact their council as a range of discounts and exemptions are available, as well as reduction schemes for those on lower incomes.
“We have consulted on ways to modernise and improve the process of council tax debt collection to give people more time to pay their bills and cap the extra costs they may face.”
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A St Albans City and District Council spokesperson said: “We have consulted on ways to modernise and improve the process of council tax debt collection to give people more time to pay their bills and cap the extra costs they may face.
“We also have policies and procedures for dealing with anyone who is not entitled to this assistance, but is still struggling to pay their bill.
“The vast majority of our residents pay their council tax in full and on time, but where a resident fails to engage with us in a constructive manner, we may as a last resort use enforcement agents to collect any outstanding debt.”
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