Invoice Demand from 2012 Do We Pay?

[MrMessy]

Received a letter from our local council for payment of fee for Building Control inspections from mid 2012. Apparently due to an accounting error the invoice was not sent out in 2012! Are we liable to pay it? We have had no certification of the building works and we did not initiate the request for inspections. Presumably the builder must have contacted the Building Control Section? Any advice appreciated.

[andrewsmith]

If you have had work done, go contact them to see what it relates to

[rowdy]

I could be wrong but I think the time limit for companies asking for payment for anything from customers/clients is six years, so on the timescale side of things then you probably are liable. However as said I would be contacting them asking for proof of what has been done, any findings of the inspection, and who requested the inspection be carried out. It is well worth keeping any written evidence of anything where the council is involved.

For example, many years ago my wife and I, along with our newborn son were put in housing accommodation provided by the council. A chap from the council came and collected our rent money on a weekly basis and provided us with a written invoice each time. A couple of years later after we had been long gone from said accommodation, we received a letter from the council asking us to pay x amount in outstanding rent arrears from that property. Luckily I had told the wife not to throw out the receipts when we were having a clear out so it was easy for us to prove that we had paid the rent. It transpired that the chap that had been collecting the rent also had a habit of visiting the bookies with people's rent money!

I'm pretty sure six years is generally correct for contracts - it's the Limitation Act 1980.

I wouldn't be paying anything until I'd spoken to them, asked them what it related to and why it was so late. I'd probably then complain because it's a bit absurd to send you an invoice after you haven't heard anything for so long.

[Bibio]

if its a council there is no time bar.

[Jayneflakes]

I am not surprised, our council here is equally useless.

My experience is that some bean counter somewhere has made a mistake, covered it up and then left the work unfinished. Finally another bean counter has found it, restarted the work and added to the mistake. Your only option is to spend half a day sat with various useless officials going through the problem, then seeing another useless mouth breather to explain the problem before they then cancel the bill. At this point another bean counter will activate the cancelled bill clause which will cause them to send you another and larger bill with the threat of court action. You will again have to sit in the council office while yet another, but more officious bean counter goes through your claim while recording your statement under caution. After a few minutes, this bean counter will then discover that you are not at fault and end the interview before advising you to make a formal complaint. Once the formal complaint goes in, the original bill will come back to you and you will have to go through the process once again.

Can you tell I speak from experience?

Make sure that you keep copies of any correspondence between you and the council, have copies of any forms they ask you to fill in and get receipts for everything you submit to them as evidence. Trust me, they will wriggle any way they can to avoid rectifying a mistake made by themselves. In our case we were told totally straight faced that they are too busy to read every form entered to their system and it is our duty to remind them of what we have said at each interview!

It turned out that we were owed £327 by them, for which they had threatened to take us to court. Yes they had threatened to take us to court for money that they owed us! Anyway we finally got a refund of over £850... and a final demand for a bill that we had previously paid and they had then refunded... So we spent another morning sat in the town hall trying to work it out with them and promptly handed back the cash they had mistakenly refunded. I have had to ask my local MP to step in because we have been accused of fraud on two occasions, both of which we have been cleared of with in minutes of showing them our evidence.

It is essential that you keep all of your records and I keep mine in a simple easy to use file, which infuriates them when I pull out every piece of evidence including receipts. There is no easy way to win this and in the end you will be left feeling frustrated and angry and you will understand why your council tax bill is so high when they are seeming incapable of organising even a simple thing like getting a beer in a brewery!