What is a Liability Order Hearing
At the Liability Order Hearing we’ll ask the magistrates to issue a liability order against you. A liability order gives us extra powers to collect the money that you owe. We’ll also ask the magistrate to add further costs of £61.00. This means the total costs for a summons and liability order will be £144.95. If you can pay the amount on the summons in full, please do so before the court date.
What does it mean to dispute liability
You have the right to dispute liability on the hearing date, for a ‘bulk hearing’. This means we’ve issued a large number of summonses for the same date and time as yours. The court will only hear individual cases if you have a valid defence against the issue of a summons.
The court decides what is a valid defence. To help you, we have listed the main defences:
- the property named on your summons is not shown as an entry in the valuation list
- the tax has not been properly set
- the amount has not been demanded in accordance with the statutory provisions
- the amount demanded has been paid in full
- more than six years have elapsed since the day on which the sum became due
- bankruptcy or winding up proceedings have been initiated.