A man desperate to pay off his vulnerable mother’s unpaid council tax says Waltham Forest Council threatened her with legal action but would not take his money.
John Mitchell, 63, whose mother is in her 90s and was diagnosed with dementia last year, discovered in December she had accidentally not paid around £500 in council tax for her Chingford home.
Despite issuing a court summons, the council did not respond to two attempts by him to pay the debt in December and January or to repeated emails for three months.
While a council officer insisted his mother would have received reminders to pay via letter and text, Mr Mitchell said the December letter was the first to arrive and that his mother has no mobile phone.
John Mitchell spent months trying to get the council to accept payment
The council finally responded, accepting his money, on March 18, the same day it was contacted for comment by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Mr Mitchell said: “I spent god knows how long trying to talk to them. Last time, I tried (to phone) I waited for over an hour on hold.
“My mum’s from the older generation and has never owed money, I knew if she opened any more of these letters it would cause her real mental distress.”
In one email to a council officer, sent on January 21 and never directly replied to, he said: “I find this totally unfair, you are dealing with a vulnerable person here and surely have a duty of care.
“By checking back on your records, you can see that for the past 50 years she has always paid on time.”
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In an email seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service and sent on March 18, a council officer said one of Mr Mitchell’s direct debits was finally received the day before.
However, they did not clarify whether this was the direct debit sent by post in December or the one sent by email in January.
The officer wrote: “We currently have a high level of incoming correspondence which is taking us longer than normal to respond to. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you.”
Waltham Forest Council was contacted for comment but has yet to respond at the time of publication.
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