hello,

I have a feeling I may be in the wrong forum for this question however I started so I'll finish.

Council Tax Arrears - Local authority deducting two lots of arrears at 12% of salary from clients slary making it very difficult for her to make ends meet... I cannot find any info on whether this is allowed... I will be writing in with details of income and expenditure asking them to stop fleecing my client but has anyone got anything extra for me to look at before I continue?

Thanks

Rules on recovery on more than one order and recovery rates are fixed and can be found in regulation 42 and schedule 4 of The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992. The regs have been amended over the years for obvious reasons and the current rules and rates can be found here:

http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/annex_c-4.pdf

Basically, 2 (and I think the maximum is 2) CTAOE orders can be applied at once with the appropriate percentage deduction to be applied to the earnings left over after the first one has been applied and not to the whole net earnings.

Hi
Just checked on wiseradviser and got regs. See below.

Priority between attachment of earnings orders
42.—(1) Where an employer would, but for this paragraph, be obliged under regulation 37(3) to make deductions on any pay-day under two or more attachment of earnings orders made under this Part, he shall make deductions only with respect to the one which was made first until it ceases to be in force, and shall then deal with the other order or orders in like manner in the order in which they were made.

Thanks for your help

Yasmin

Yasmin

That was the original form of reg42(1). The reg was later amended and replaced with the following:

Priority as between orders

42.—(1) Where an employer would, but for this paragraph, be obliged to make deductions on any pay-day under more than one attachment of earnings orders, he shall—

(a) deal with the orders according to the respective dates on which they were made, disregarding any later order until an earlier one has been dealt with; and

(b) deal with any later order as if the earnings to which it relates were the residue of the debtor's earnings after the making of any deduction to comply with any earlier order.

Due to the marked difference in the wording LA's have interpreted this as allowing them to apply more than one CTAEO at the same time. However, the wording is not absolutely precise and a money advice specialist might know whether an LA's view has ever been successfully challenged.