Commentary on Sections Schedule 7: Minor and Consequential amendments Section 82: Quashing of liability orders
187.When a taxpayer falls behind with their council tax, billing authorities have to apply to the magistrates’ court for a liability order before they can seek to use various powers to recover the debt. There are relatively few defences against the making of a liability order - these include the fact that an amount has not properly been demanded or that the amount has been paid. Unless a defence is accepted by the court, the order will be granted. In practice very few are refused.
188.However, it can emerge after the order has been made that a mistake has occurred, for example, the taxpayer may later find receipts proving that he had paid. In such cases, no action should be taken under the liability order. However, some taxpayers view the liability order as an unwarranted stain on their character and demand that the liability order be deleted from the record. At present, this can only be achieved on application to a higher court. The cost involved is unwarranted where there is no dispute about the facts.
189.Section 82 (which inserts into Schedule 4 to the LGFA 1992 a new paragraph 12A) allows the Secretary of State (in Wales the NAW) to make regulations giving magistrates' courts powers to quash a liability order if the court is satisfied that the liability order should not have been made. This only applies where the local authority has applied to have the liability order quashed. It does not give council taxpayers a right to require magistrates' courts to reconsider all liability orders made.
190.New paragraph 12A(b) enables regulations to be made permitting the magistrates' courts to substitute a liability order for a lower amount where it considers that a liability order could properly have been made had it been made for that lower amount (which would include a sum for the costs incurred in obtaining the original order).