Former Wolverhampton students owe £18k in council tax

Between January last year and this year, the council issued 49 court summons for outstanding council tax from former University of Wolverhampton students.

Students are exempt from paying council tax but this exemption ends when their programme of study does.

The 49 summonses accounted for £22,938.60 of unpaid tax. More than £4,000 of this has since been paid, meaning the council is still owed £18,087.24, with 33 summonses still active.

The council has said its recovery teams "work tirelessly" to chase the owed cash, but the authority has been criticised for allowing the debt to rack up.

Liberal Democrat campaigner Natasha Allmark, who uncovered the figures from a Freedom of Information request, said: "Everyone should pay for the services they use in the city but the idea that council can just let thousands of pounds slip through their fingers should worry everyone. I wouldn't let the people at the top of the council run me a bath let alone trust them with my council tax.

"But what also should should send a shiver down everyone's spine is that Wolverhampton Council use bailiffs to chase people, sometimes only for a few quid. They make people's lives a misery and create a spiral of debt that people cannot get out of. The council should say today, like the Liberal Democrats have pledged, that it will stop using heavy handed and de-grading bailiffs to chase debts."

If the initial court summons fails in an attempt to recoup owed council tax, Wolverhampton Council then resorts to a liability order, which means bailiffs could be called in and wages could be deducted by your employer.

Bailiffs have the ability to take possessions and sell them on to recoup the money owed.

If all this fails and the council decides it will never get its money, it can write the debt off.

A spokesman for Wolverhampton Council said: “Our recovery teams work tirelessly for as long as it takes to ensure people pay what they owe. Sometimes it can take several years to recover a debt, but we would never give up unless every possible avenue has been exhausted.”