The Council Tax bill, discount, exemption or reduction is wrong after a liability order

A liability order does not prevent you from raising a genuine dispute about the underlying council tax decision. Examples include the wrong liable person, the wrong billing period, a missing discount or exemption, or an incorrect council tax reduction decision.

For liability and many discount or exemption decisions, the statutory appeal route begins by serving a written notice on the billing authority under section 16 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992.^[1] Council tax reductions are made under section 13A and the applicable local reduction scheme.^[2]

In England, if the council rejects the liability challenge you ordinarily have two months from its decision to appeal to the Valuation Tribunal. If the council does not answer within two months, an appeal may ordinarily be made within four months of the date you first wrote to the council.^[3]

Keep paying the amount demanded so far as you can while the dispute is being determined; a council tax appeal does not itself suspend the bill or automatically cancel an existing liability order. Ask the council expressly to put recovery and bailiff enforcement on hold if there is a substantial unresolved billing issue.

If the council's correction means an existing liability order should not have been made, the council may apply to the magistrates' court to quash it. The regulation also permits a replacement liability order for a lesser amount where its conditions are satisfied.^[4]

Send the council a concise schedule showing the disputed year, the amount billed, the amount you say is correct, the legal basis for the discount/exemption/reduction, and the supporting documents. This makes it much harder for a recovery team to treat a genuine liability dispute as a mere request for time to pay.

^{[1] Section 16 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992
[2] Section 13A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992
[3] Valuation Tribunal: Council Tax liability appeal (England)
[4] Regulation 36A of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992}