Hartlepool Borough Council "Acting like Loan Sharks" Over Unpaid Council Tax....

The local council which in 2023 was branded a local council with no public confidence faces yet more criticism over the court costs being added to those struggling to pay their Council Tax Bills....

15th August 2025

Local councils are being accused of operating like loan sharks after a Teesside & Durham Post investigation finds the Controversial costs have increased dramatically despite almost all local councils in the country failing to evidence their costs as being reasonable & proportionate when challenged. .

Its claimed local councils such as Hartlepool Borough Council are using “grotesque” collection practices that punitively punish the vulnerable and push struggling households into a spiralling debt trap, where a single missed monthly payment, can quickly explode into large penalties, court summonses, and even bailiffs at the door — often within a matter of weeks.

Under current rules, councils can issue a final demand for the full year’s council tax bill to be paid just seven days after a missed instalment. This means a household that misses a typical £140 payment could be forced to find as much as £1,668 within three weeks — or face the threat of court action. In many cases, the debt is handed to bailiffs in just under six weeks, leaving residents in crisis to turn to high-interest credit cards just to avoid legal consequences.

Martin Lewis, founder of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, says this system is far harsher than the private sector. Credit card companies and regulated lenders are legally obliged to offer repayment plans and normally wait at least three months before escalating recovery action.

This was one of the adverts Hartlepool Borough Council was peddling on its social media pages, sadly there was no telephone number to report themselves for charging 'loan shark' rates for council tax non payment

“When someone misses a monthly payment, rather than asking: ‘How can we help?’ many councils say: ‘Now you have to pay 12 times that.’ It’s like a caricature of the worst loan sharks,” Lewis said. “Rapidly piling on payment demands, court threats, charges and bailiff action isn’t fair or productive… it’s like councils are setting a trap for people who miss a payment that they have no hope of escaping from.”

The Teesside & Durham Post has in its most recent investigations found that Hartlepool Borough Council has been adding as much as £120 to each council tax payer’s bill when applying to the county court for a liability order — in some cases nearly half the original amount owed if someone received Council Tax Support. This inflated fee is plunging scores of local households even deeper into debt, despite a previous court case back in 2015 already ruling that liability order costs can be unlawful if they are determined to be 'excessive'.

Martin Lewis Chair & `founder of Money & Mental Health previously spoke to the Guardian Newspaper in September 2024 over council using court costs to 'punish' those who struggled to pay council tax

Critics argue the practice amounts to nothing more than a stealth tax on the poor, with the so-called “administration costs” bearing very little relation to the actual 50p court fee charged to process a council tax liability order, oweing to almost all of the cases being dealt with electronically in bulk. .

Martin Lewis previously condemned such charges as “disguised fines” and is said to be urging the government to give households more time to arrange affordable repayment plans before councils can unleash their full enforcement powers — particularly to protect people on low incomes or with mental health problems.

The message is clear: while councils claim they are simply collecting what they are owed, their aggressive tactics risk causing far more damage than the debts themselves.