Challenge to £125 cost of council tax summons reaches High Court

The High Court will today (30 April) hear a vicar’s challenge to the London Borough of Haringey’s £125 costs for a council tax summons.

The dispute goes back to 2 August 2013, when Reverend Paul Nicolson asked Tottenham magistrates how the sum was arrived at.

He was granted leave for judicial review on 7 October 2014. His legal team is Helen Mountfield QC and Eloise Le Santo of Matrix Chambers, acting through the Bar Pro Bono Unit.

The case will be heard by Mrs Justice Andrews.

Ahead of the hearing Rev Nicolson said: “I hope the case will clarify the magistrates’ legal responsibilities when councils ask them for permission to increase costs in council tax cases and also the law relating to the calculation of the costs demanded by councils.”

The vicar said evidence provided under the Freedom of Information Act by the Ministry of Justice showed that they made no inquiries into Haringey’s decision to request an increase in costs from £95 to £125 in 2010/11.

“In effect a court clerk with no clear authority from the magistrates granted Haringey Council an increase of £600,000 income a year or £3m over the five years to April 2015,” Nicolson said, adding that around 25,000 summonses were issued to Haringey residents in 2013/14.

The vicar said: “I remain profoundly concerned about the disproportionate effects that that the court orders for increased costs, and their draconian consequences, in council tax cases are having on benefit claimants, and the poorest residents of Haringey, in the context of all the austerity measures applying to their incomes since April 2013.”

Rev Nicolson initiated the case won against Haringey’s 2012 council tax consultation in the Supreme Court on 29 October 2014.