It took Edinburgh Council no less than FIVE MONTHS
to sort out my housing benefit. When they finally did get round to doing it, they sent it to my landlord, who cashed the cheque, and I had to be very polite to him to get it back (I had actually been paying my rent all that time).

One time I got a council tax bill for a whole year they just forgot to charge for.

Trying to get them to cancel the benefit when I finally moved out was an extra challenge. They sent my final benefit cheque and council tax refund to the house I just told them I'd moved out of. Moving in my new place was also fun. They back-taxed us for five years worth as the computer system couldn't handle someone just moving in with someone else and consequently backdated my occupancy to when my boyfriend first bought the property. We also had a student as a lodger, for added administrative hilarity (the council also sent him a tax bill at his mother's house, presuming him to be her husband).

And before that there was Durham Council, who spend an entire year trying to get our council tax bill right when I was living there as a student. Since there were three of us in the house, an undergraduate, a postgraduate, and a postdoctoral researcher, this caused them great difficulties in working anything out correctly at all. In short, only one of us was actually liable for paying any tax (the postdoc). They told me the college sent them the list of students so I wouldn't need to do anything further. Still no discount. You see, the college doesn't tell them about postgraduates, only undergraduates. So then I had to go through the equally dismal University administration to get an exemption certificate, stamped by my department and everything, which I took to the council and they sent me another bill which was wrong, because they lost my certificate so I had to get another one. Eventually they sent us a court order for non-payment of council we weren't even due and it was up to me to sort it out again. I had been to their offices on something like a monthly basis and every time I had explained the situation and only a week before I left did they send us a bill that was correct.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 31 Jul 2007, 21:37, Reply)