Councils and the Magistrates Court

[tr0niks]

umbongo82, thanks for that info.

as per justsaynoconsent, I am not too bothered by the summons. Despite the obvious conflict of interest of the council acting as plaintiff and court administrator, this is just the invitation.

A sworn, signed complaint is what starts the court process and the judge's decision is issued as a signed order. These are the 2 key documents.

Despite 3 notices to council, we never saw any documents for 4 different cases. Even with Subject Access Request - got a stack of paper including copy of summonses, but no other legal stuff. Council did claim some documents witheld for third-party confidentiality. Really wanted wife to do another Subject Access Request to courts but she wouldn't as we already had council in a stalemate.

Took a lot to persuade wife to do conditional acceptance. If council had sent the paperwork, she would probably have paid up.

There must be something that the council did not want us to know about or why else would they give up on just under £200.00?

[umbongo82]

@ tr0niks

It's tax and you owe it, why should they give up? That's the mindset they have, not my view before anyone starts. With the two documents you said you needed, you should be able to get a copy of them (or perhaps just view them, not sure) at court.

@ justsaynoconsent

A complaint is made by the council to the magistrates and as I mentioned signed off by a clerk under their powers (I can't imagine that they would actually bother a magistrate) and then the summonses are sent by the council. Not sure about agreements between councils and courts but from what I've read it's very much a local agreement as opposed to a blanket one.

HMCS, electronic? Behave, well in the case of my local court anyway. I've seen the complaint list and court list down at one of my hearings and they're like War & Peace. Big bloody folders with hundreds of names on it. On that basis I can only conclude that the complaint is signed off en masse. You're right, I doubt they do consider every case in a complaint.

As far as I know as it's heard in open court, it is public information but happy to be corrected on that. I would have thought that a DPA request would get your own details from it.

[DominicJay]

Hello umbongo how tricks ? still baning on about legislation I see. ''ITS A MONSTER''

[tr0niks]

@ tr0niks

It's tax and you owe it, why should they give up? That's the mindset they have, not my view before anyone starts. With the two documents you said you needed, you should be able to get a copy of them (or perhaps just view them, not sure) at court.

The OP was on the subject of non-disclosure from courts. My comments were about alleged legal costs where no court documents were provided.

Had hoped in posting to at least move the subject along. For my own curiosity, I would have liked to hear from someone who got further in and had seen any court documents.

Wife paid the tax. She had wanted to contest some of it was owed by an ex-housemate. I had to explain to her about joint and several liability meaning she was liable for all of it (especially as ex-housemate had moved to Nepal!).

Have learned a great deal more since then and would do things very differently now, with much shorter correspondence at least!