Ex-housemate minirant:
For the last 3 years, she’s been slightly underpaying the council tax- it came out of my account, and for some reason, they don’t divide it into equal payments through the year, some were £104, some were £108, and one was different again- with no apparent pattern.
So, she’d set up a bank transfer, rounded down to £50 monthly, with the original agreement that she made up the shortfall in cash every month. I wrote off extra bit the first few months, because she was only working part-time, and was really tight on money. That was a mistake. She never got into the habit of actually coughing it up- reminder attempts got a sort of ‘Oh, I thought you were dealing with that’ or ‘I’ll just buy you a takeaway next month to make up for it’ sort of reaction. It was a little irritating, but it was only a few quid a month, so I just let it go, not really worth the fight.
Fast forward three years, and she’s just massively messed me around by moving in with the new boyfriend with no notice (two days after promising she absolutely was not going to be doing that), so I had to quit the flat and find somewhere else to live at very short notice- which was a nighmare move (she abandoned most of her stuff, including her pets, in the house, leaving me to sort it out), and I’m certain I’ve lost the deposit on the flat, as there just wasn’t time to fix all the stuff like the hole in the plaster where she tried to hang a poster up, or the rips in the wallpaper, or the big holes in the carpet where she left an iron. We’re really not on good terms any more, and are only communicating to sort out any final bills.
Apparently, after 5 years of leaving it to me (for the first two years, we got paper bills and paid equally, until I missed one, and got fined, at which point I decided direct debit would be safer) she’s suddenly decided to find out how the council tax was supposed to work, and claims to have discovered that at some point along the line, it’s been overpaid to the tune of £100, which the council may be refunding (though I’ll trust that when I see it, originally, she claimed it was £200 underpaid).
She’s insisting that this hypothetical refund is hers. Not even half hers- entirely hers. Because, you see, she forgot that she wasn’t paying her full half, so it’s totally unfair of me to assume that, because I’ve been demonstrably overpaying for the last 3 years, any money back due to overpayment should be due to me, unless she can actually prove that it’s hers. I’m being sooooo selfish. :rolleyes:
eta:
I doubt she can persuade the council to repay it to her account instead of mine- it’ll be interesting to see if she tries though.
