With the council though you offered legal tender to settle a debt. They can still refuse your ^20 coin, but the debt would remain. A debt is not discharged if you offer legal tender and it is refused. Should the council sue to recover the debt they would be unlikely to be awarded costs after refusing legal tender and prosecution for non-payment would likely fail. The court would likely just order the debt be paid and the council told to accept the legal tender.
I'd be slightly careful with that statement, i may have misread it however. Although I may be talking here about Civil Debts. An Original "Creditor" cannot refuse payment for a debt. For example. I fail to make a payment on my mobile phone contract and the account is passed over to a third party debt collections agency. The collections agency can hassle me for payment (within strict reason and guidelines they frequently ignore), but if I decide to ignore them and pay the original creditor directly. I have every right to do so. The DCA
will throw all its toys out the pram will not like this. Tough. That's law.
There is one mobile phone company that springs to mind (well three actually; they're all one and the same now) who will "refuse" to accept payments for accounts once the debt has been assigned to a collections agency. (Note; Assigned,
not sold where this is a big difference). However if you put a letter in the post with a cheque for the overdue amount and remind the Mobile Company of it's requirements as defined by the Financial Conduct Authority... The matter will become "closed" and the account "settled" very quickly... Funny that
Might take the DCA a while to go away, who will get rather upset they've lost their commission... My heart bleeds!
As a now ex Local Government Officer it is sad to read the comments above about useless local authorities but I suspect they may be right. 50 years ago one of my first jobs was as a local authority cashier (before I qualified as a professional CIPFA accountant) and the emphasis was always on customer service and helping the customer even if it meant spending quarter of an hour counting a huge bottle of coins brought in to pay the rates bill.
I'm sorry, but the comments here *are* right... I had trouble with some Council Tax a while back where I was completely unaware that I had an outstanding Council Tax Bill I had never paid. The first I became aware was when a Bailiff turned up at my door at my new address. Consquently he didn't get his "Walk-in Possession" and he went away again after getting bored as I didn't come to the door.
A phone call to the district council came to show an outstanding balance of ^19.70 on my previous address. A lengthy argument kicked off as to resolving the matter. I offered to settle the account immediately and was told to speak to the bailiffs. I refused and said I will only pay original creditors and not any third parties. When asked why I had not notified the council of my new address I was giving a brilliant example which I blew well out of the water was thus:
"If you move house and notify your electric company, you should in turn notify your gas company too"
"Ah yes. But if I have a dual fuels tariff with my utility provider I only need to inform one company who will deal with both accounts there and then. So one would expect that in asking for a change of claim for the smallest amount of Housing Benefit I receive, that as the council are the same company, somehow this would be brought to the attention of the Council Tax Department. As such if I only have one fuel I.E. Only a Electric Supply, I would only notify Council Tax anyway as it's not relevant to notify for something that doesn't exist. I.E. a Housing Benefit Claim. So I'm sorry but that is not a valid argument and has only strengthened mine"
I was then asked how I would like to resolve the matter. I asked to pay the bill and close the matter. Again told to speak to bailiffs. I was then rather flippant and suggested that if I kept being harassed by bailiffs for ^19.70 + Their Fees that there would become a point where my mental health conditions would render me unaccountable to my actions.
This is when the conversation changed completely "If you can supply proof of your mental health condition sir, I will contact the bailiffs and request they return the account as you would be classed a vulnerable person"
Not perhaps the route I wanted to take at all... But it worked I guess
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