Everyone loves a good rant

Enjoy, someone should get to smile out of these bloody situations.

Ref: xxxxxxx
Council tax due for XX the lodge doobeedoo road.

Dear Whoever,
I was happy to finally receive today written confirmation of the amount owed on the above property, however I was not so happy to discover that part of this balance appears to be 'court costs' for £60.00.
I would appreciate it very much if you could explain this charge by calling me IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of this email. My mobile phone number is 07779 xxxxxx.
I have absolutely no issue with paying the council tax that is due, I was simply awaiting confirmation of how much it was before I could pay it. I hardly see why I should have to pay £60 of mysterious court costs when you, the council, have been so slow in responding to me.

After vacating the above property, I phoned the council several times to ascertain what, if any, tax was still owed and never managed to speak to a real live human being so I left several voice messages asking to be called back. This never happened and so I sent an email (attached at the bottom of this email) dated the 31st of July to try to get a response from you.
Last week (nearly 1 month later) I received a phone call from a lady who informed me of the amount owed but was reticent in revealing any further details when I commented on the amount seeming rather high.

I now have a letter telling me I owe £60 in court costs, and yet I was never once reminded or warned that I still owed money (which I would have happily paid immediately) and was never informed that 'court costs' would be incurred.
Surely I have to be informed that something is going as far as the court, and incidentally, what did the court do? Decide that yes, I did owe some council tax, and charge £60 for the privilege of deciding? That is, to my mind, simply ludicrous.

I have proof (below) that I informed you we would be vacating the property on the 14th of July. This proof is dated 31st of July but if you had actually responded to my repeated phone calls you would have been aware of this fact mere days after we moved out.
Therefore any correspondence sent to that address after the 14th of July would not have made it to me. This seems incredibly obvious to me, just a brief employment of brainpower should have deduced that sending letters to a property that has been vacated is possibly not the smoothest form of communication.
This shouldn't be a problem, in this modern age there are many forms of communication, you have had my mobile phone number (07779 xxxxxx which is always switched on) and email address throughout this time. It would not have been difficult to make one short phone call to check I was receiving your letters. It couldn't possibly have been the case that you had very little interest in making sure I was receiving your correspondence, as it just means another £60 in the Council coffers for absolutely no effort on your part whatsoever. That couldn't be the case, that wouldn't be very public spirited at all, would it?

All of this would have been irrelevant had the TWO direct debit forms I sent to you actually have worked, most of the time I was living at The Lodge I assumed I was paying my council tax by DD until I received a letter telling me I had never set any such thing up. TWICE.

I have absolutely no issue whatsoever with paying the COUNCIL TAX that I owe (briefly employing some brain power, I make that £xxx.xx) but I object most strongly to this ridiculous charge of £60. I know it won't happen but I would dearly like to be called back (07779 xxxxxx) IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of this email by someone who can actually do something about this situation.
I see from your paperwork that your office opens at 8.30a.m, so if I have not heard from you I will be calling at 9a.m, this should give you ample time to actually start doing some work, read my email and respond to me.

I look forward quite eagerly to hearing from you, but I don't honestly expect it to happen any time soon, why not surprise me.

Dan Verge
danverge@hotmail.com
07779 xxxxxx (in case you missed it the first three times I wrote it)