A NUMBER of homeowners across the city and county suffered great upset in recent weeks when they received household charge reminders addressed to deceased relatives – some of whom passed away in the 1980s. In one case, an 82-year-old widow from Rathbane was said to be extremely distressed after receiving a household charge reminder addressed to her dead husband. The woman’s son, who wished to remain anonymous, explained: “My mam has received a household tax demand from Limerick City Council, but when it arrived it was addressed to my dad who is deceased since 1997.
This, you might imagine, has caused great distress to my mam, who is 82 years old and very frail.”
“My brothers and sisters are not at all impressed by the insensitivity shown in this letter. I contacted Limerick City Council on her behalf, explained the situation and the terrible state that this had left my mam in. They were all apologies explaining that this was a common mistake.”
When asked about the problem of demands being sent to people who were dead, a spokesperson from the Limerick City Council finance department commented: “We get our information from the bureau in Dublin. If there is a husband and wife listed, we would just take the first name on the list rather than sending out two letters to the one house”.
“We understand it can be very difficult for someone to get a letter like that, particularly in these circumstances but unfortunately the database does contain some old information.”
The spokesperson advised anyone wishing to remove the details of a deceased relative from the database to contact the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) which is responsible for collecting the charge on behalf of city and county councils.
Contact details for the LGMA are available at www.householdcharge.ie.
