Afterwards

Writing to the Council

A few days ago we arrived at mum's old home, late but in the long light of the Highland summer. Since then, but for walks with Oscar, it's been work, including composing a letter to the local council to claim exemptions from council tax that ought to have been accorded, but for complicated reasons, have not. The letter with redactions to protect innocent and guilty:

Dear Sir or Madam
Re: Brin Croft, Inverarnie, Property No.**
On Wednesday 12 June I visited the Highland Council service point in Inverness, having just arrived to arrange the clearance of my deceased mother’s house at the address above and finding a council tax/water charge bill for £1650.24 for the financial year 2013-14 and also a ‘final notice’ for the bill. A very helpful council officer, Mary, took details and advised me to write to you to request your assistance in obtaining the council tax discounts to which I should be entitled.
My mother, Mrs Barbara Burnett-Stuart, passed away on November 1st, 2012, but, for reasons I will explain, the executors’ exemption was never applied. As this gets quite complicated, I will give the details in note form.

1. 01/11/12 - Mrs Burnett-Stuart died
2. 12/11/12 - My wife, Linda Baddeley, phoned the Highland Council tax office on my behalf, to inform them of my mother’s death. She explained that, because there were items of significant value in Brin Croft, which I was not allowed to remove until confirmation of the probate, the house being fairly isolated and it being general knowledge that Mrs Burnett-Stuart had died, the executors  (myself and my sister, who currently lives in New York) had employed a caretaker. The representative to whom my wife spoke said that in these circumstances the executors’ exemption might still be applied and that a bereavement form would be sent for me to complete.
3. 14/11/12 – I received a letter from the Highland Council operations team and a form to fill in with the executors’ details. I completed this and posted it by return
4. 16/11/12 – A council tax bill arrived at Brin Croft addressed to Mrs B Burnett-Stuart, for the period 2012 to 2013, indicating that £1096.08 had already been paid and that the amount still due was £548. The reference number for the account was 67-*******-12.
5. 16/11/12 – My wife phoned the Highland Council tax office to question the bill, in view of the fact that it was in Mrs Burnett-Stuart’s name rather than the Executors’ and that she had been told previously that the executors’ exemption might still be applied, in spite of the fact that there was a caretaker living in the house. The council representative informed her that it could not be applied if the house was occupied.
Mrs Baddeley explained that the caretaker, Mrs B****n, had a residence in xxx where she already paid full council tax and requested that the single occupancy discount be applied, as only the caretaker would be living in the house.
The council employee said that Mrs B****n would only be entitled to a 10% “second home” discount, as she had a home in Edinburgh. Mrs Baddeley pointed out that Brin Croft was not Mrs B****n’s  “home”, but her place of work, and that the nature of the work, i.e. being caretaker, required her to live there.
The council employee insisted that Brin Croft was Mrs B****n’s “second home”, and said that the council tax account must be put into her name, as the occupant and the person paying the bill.
Mrs B****n was not in fact paying the bill. As my sister had already returned to her home in New York and I myself live 450 miles away in Birmingham and am regularly out of the UK, Mrs B****n’s account was funded by the executors to pay her salary and all outgoings for Brin Croft, including council tax.
The council employee my wife spoke to would not accept that Mrs B****n was not personally responsible for the council tax. She insisted that the account would be put into Mrs B****n’s name and that only a 10% “second home” discount would be applied.
6. 16/01/13 - The Highland Council sent a bill to Mrs B****n at Brin Croft with “Reason For Issue: New Account”, reference number 62-06****-12. The bill for £617.10, rather than the £548.00 still due according to the previous bill dated 14th November addressed to my mother, was for the period 15th November 2012 to 31st March 2013. No discount of any kind had been applied. Mrs B****n rang the Highland Council and requested single occupancy discount. She was again refused the discount, on the grounds that Brin Croft was her ‘second home’.
7. 06/03/13 – Highland Council sent Mrs B****n a bill for £563.75 indicating that the 10% “second home” discount had been applied. Mrs B****n paid this bill on the 7th March 2013 – payment reference 6****2.
8. 12/03/13 - Highland Council sent Mrs B****n a bill for £1508.10, giving 10% “second home” discount, for the tax year 1st April 2013-31st March 2014. The first payment was due on April 1st 2013.
9. 17/03/13 - With all forms completed by the solicitor and Confirmation having been applied for, I was given permission to start clearing the house. I contacted Mrs B****n, who had taken the caretaking job in the knowledge that it could end with short notice, depending on when permission was given to clear the house, to inform her that her services would only be required until the end of March. All valuables were removed from the house by the end of the month.
10. 29/03/13 (approx.) - Mrs B****n rang Highland Council to inform them of her departure at the end of the month, asking for the account to be put into the name of “The Executors of the Late Barbara Burnett-Stuart”, and requesting that the six months executors’ exemption now be applied, as the property would be empty for the foreseeable future. She was informed that this exemption would only be applied if the immediately previous account holder had died.  As Mrs B****n was regarded as the previous account holder and had not died, my sister and myself, as executors, had been deprived of our entitlement to the executors’ exemption.
11. 31/03/13 - All valuables had been removed from the house and Mrs B****n vacated the property.
12. 11/06/13 – My wife and I, having been out of the UK for the whole of April and May, visited Brin Croft to arrange clearance of the remaining contents. In the post there was a council tax bill addressed to Mrs B****n dated 17/04/13 showing that she had paid all council tax due until her departure at the end of March.
There was also a bill stating “Reason For Issue: New Account, reference number 67-*****-13” in the name of “Executor of the Late B Burnett-Stuart” . The bill, for 01/04/13-31/03/14, showed the amount to be paid to be the full £1650.24 council tax, first instalment due 1st May 2013. There was also a council tax reminder/final notice dated 16/05/13, threatening harsh penalties for late payment.
The Highland Council had been informed by Mrs B****n that the property would be empty from April 1st  2013, so must have been aware that there was no-one at Brin Croft to receive the bill. I believe the bereavement form I returned in November 2012 gave my contact details, but, as far as I’m aware, no-one tried to contact me.
13. 12/06/13 - My wife and I spoke to Mary at the Highland Council Service Point in Church Street, Inverness.

Mrs B****n has informed me that during her time at Brin Croft she phoned several times and wrote to the Highland Council twice regarding the council tax issues, but nothing was resolved.
As you can imagine, trying to deal with this has added to the upset and stress already caused by the death of my mother and sorting our all her affairs.  The letter sent with the bereavement form on 12 November 2012 expressed deepest sympathy and stated “Council Tax is charged on a daily basis and in the changed circumstances it is important to ensure you receive every possible discount to which you may have become entitled.”
In effect the only discount which has been received was inappropriate, being a “second home” discount in the wrong name.
Mary at the Inverness Service Point was of the opinion that problems had all stemmed from the account being mistakenly changed into Mrs B****n’s name from 15th November 2012, resulting in two accounts being issued, instead of a single account, from November 1st 2012, in the name of the Executors of Mrs Barbara Burnett-Stuart.
The original account was:
67-****-12 Mrs B Burnett-Stuart
A new account in the name of the Executors of Mrs B Burnett-Stuart should have been opened from 1st November 2012 when she died. However the new account was opened in the name of Mrs E B****n from 15th November 2012:
62-****-12 Mrs E B****n
When Mrs B****n left our employ at the end of March 2013 the new account was opened in the name that should have applied all along:
67-*****-13 Executor of the Late B Burnett Stuart
In order to right matters, I am making a request that the records should be changed to reflect the council tax responsibility of the Executors of Mrs B Burnett-Stuart from November 1st 2012, until such a time in the future as the property is sold. I also believe that the following discounts should be applied:

1. 25% single occupancy discount from 1st  November 2012 to 31st March 2013, when Mrs B****n was employed as caretaker by the executors, due to circumstances beyond their control.
2. Executors’ exemption for the six months, starting 1st April 2013, or until the property is sold, should this be earlier than 30th September 2013.

The full council tax bill for Brin Croft for the year 2012-2013 was £1644.08. My mother paid a total of £1096.08 and the executors, via Mrs B****n, paid £563.75 (£617.10 less 10%), making a total of £1659.83. As you can see, this is £15.75 more than the correct cost for the year, even without taking into account the 10% saved due to the second home discount applied November 15th-31st March. The total charge before taking off this discount amounts to £1713.18. Obviously, as my mother was paying a year’s bill over only ten months, she had paid more than was due on the day the account was wrongly changed to Mrs B****n’s name. The amount due should have been £1644.08/365 x 228 days which equals £1026.99 rather than the £1096.08 she had paid.
In total £1659.83 was paid in council tax and water charges for the year 2012-2013, firstly by Mrs Burnett-Stuart and then by her executors via Mrs B****n.  I believe that the correct charge should have been £1489.81. (Full charge for the year £1644.08.   Mrs Burnett Stuart 228 days = £1026.99. Mrs B****n 137 days = £617.09, less 25% single occupancy discount = £462.82).
I am therefore also requesting that the overpayment of £170.02, which belongs to the four beneficiaries of my mother’s will, be repaid to the solicitor dealing with my mother’s estate:....Mr **** can also confirm that the executors have been responsible for and have paid, via Mrs B****n, all bills at Brin Croft since my mother’s death on November 1st 2012.....I apologise for the length of this letter, but, as you can see, the situation is complicated and took a great deal of words and time to explain. I have been out of the country for most of the year so far, so this is the first opportunity I have had to make this appeal. I believe that Mrs B****n wrote to you more than once while I was away, but had no joy. I was very upset to hear from her that it had been implied, by Highland Council staff, that she was lying about the situation in order to claim a discount on her own behalf to which she was not entitled. I hope this letter (and the considerable time and effort taken to write it!) will show that this was certainly not the case.

I must say that I have been both surprised and disappointed at the way this has been dealt with by the Highland Council and hope that this can now be redressed.
I will be in the UK until September and look forward to hearing from you in due course at the above Birmingham address. If necessary, I can also be contacted by phone on 0121 *** **** or by email at ***@****.
Yours faithfully
Simon Baddeley

"You know" I said to Lin after hours working on this letter - entirely her work - printed and posted by me this morning, also emailed as an attachment to the Operations Manager of Highland Council...
"I can sometimes see the attractions of corruption. Instead of writing this long complaint and petition I could pop down to see a 'friend' in the council and with a swift φακελάκι the whole ruddy mess would be sorted in minutes."

Arriving in the gloaming at Brin Croft

It's strange to be without phone or wifi, but a good test too. We can get a weak mobile signal from a slope at one corner of the garden, but to work on the internet and phone we're buying coffee and biscuits in a 'free wifi' hotel overlooking the river Ness in town.

A weak signal

Colin came round to strim the long grass that's grown around the house since mum died...

...and I've done weeding and pruning and sweeping and clearing - but there's more to do. Our main work's indoors where we have to have the house cleared so as to put it on the market, all items inventoried and accounted for, with some to be kept, some sold, some given to charities.  For some things, transport costs could be higher than the sale price, unless we do our own carriage. One quote we had for the journey to a sale in Edinburgh started at £600. There's an auction at Fraser's at Dingwall in mid-July, so we're creating an 'auction' pile and planning to hire a drive-yourself van. Other items are, though not especially valuable, likely to do better if sold on eBay or Gumtree or taken south and sold at auction there. We may be able to borrow a van for that and so more could be paid to beneficiaries. So there's a 'going south' pile. I'm taking a load of mum's books that none of us wants to Leakey's in Invemess. What they won't buy will go to the charity bookshop over the road. Lin's putting mum's extensive disability equipment on Gumtree, after disability companies told me that you cannot sell these things second hand to public companies or charities - those who perhaps most want it. "Too many ifs and buts about safety, especially for electrically powered items". I suspect we may end up giving away a lot of very expensive kit in good condition and I as an executor will need to justify this.

Mum's scooter bought new which she used once and didn't like (photo: Linda B)

My grief for mum is placeless. Thank goodness. This work is tedious and often frustrating, but I get not the slightest sense of mum's having been here. She's left no presence. That's all in my head wherever I am and in my DNA. She made the places she lived, and when she left them, in this case in dying, they cease to be part of her. What's her is not material, not in objects or sounds or even smells. It's all in my head and heart. So Lin and I are together here, surrounded by objects that carry no charge.
I take Oscar for familiar walks but no longer with the other terriers. He runs back and forth led by his nose, his tail wagging, happy as a Wordsworth child and as bored when stuck with us at home as we concentrate on the banality of probate.

Strathnairn - a fresh summer breeze from the south

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Ill news from beloved Greece - the planned closure of their equivalent of the BBC - TV and radio... a comment on the village website:

Η Φιλαρμονική Κορακιάνας για την ΕΡΤ

14.06.13

ΨΗΦΙΣΜΑ Η Φιλαρμονική Άνω Κορακιάνας «Ο Σπύρος Σαμάρας», ως ένα από τα πολλά σωματεία της Ελλάδας που υπηρετούν τον πολιτισμό και την παιδεία και διαπνέονται από την πίστη στην ελευθερία της σκέψης, τη δημοκρατία και την αγάπη στην πατρίδα, καταδικάζει την μεγάλη προσβολή που συνετελέσθη στο πρόσωπο του ελληνικού λαού με την βίαιη και πραξικοπηματική φίμωση της Ελληνικής Ραδιοφωνίας Τηλεόρασης, εκφράζοντας παράλληλα την συμπαράστασή της στους απολυμένους της. Το κλείσιμο της Ελληνικής Ραδιοφωνίας Τηλεόρασης, του μόνου εναπομείναντος ισχυρού κυματοθραύστη απέναντι σε κάθε λογής προϊόν υποκουλτούρας και αποχαύνωσης αλλά και συνάμα πυλώνος έκφρασης και διάδοσης του ελληνικού πολιτισμού, στο κέντρο, τη διασπορά αλλά και πολλές ευαίσθητες περιοχές, αποτελεί πράξη εκβαρβαρισμού και γεννά πολλά ερωτηματικά, τώρα που όλοι είμαστε πλέον βέβαιοι για τις «πονηρές» ημέρες που διάγουμε και τις ζοφερές αναμνήσεις που πλησιάζουν απειλητικά από το μέλλον…                                       Για το Δ.Σ.  Ο Πρόεδρος του Δ.Σ.                                    Ο Γ. Γραμματέας  ΣΠΥΡΙΔΩΝ ΣΑΒΒΑΝΗΣ                                 ΣΤΑΜΑΤΗΣ ΑΠΕΡΓΗΣ

Η γεωγραφία της φοροδιαφυγής

A fascinating and methodologically sophisticated piece of research published in April - Tax evasion across industries: soft credit evidence  from Greece by Nikolaos Artavanis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Adair Morse and Margarita Tsoutsoura, 
 University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and NBER (who've a strong record of research on tax evasion), Chicago Booth Research, 11 April 2012 [Updated Draft, June 2012]

Abstract: We begin with the new observation that banks lend to tax-evading individuals based on the bank's perception of true income. This insight leads to a novel approach to estimate tax evasion from private-sector adaptation to semi-formality. We use household microdata from a large bank in Greece and replicate bank models of credit capacity, credit card limits, and mortgage payments to infer the bank’s estimate of individuals’ true income. We estimate a lower bound of €28 billion of unreported income for Greece. The foregone government revenues amount to 31% of the deficit for 2009. Primary tax-evading occupations are doctors, engineers, private tutors, accountants, financial service agents, and lawyers - professions heavily represented in Parliament. Testing the industry distribution against a number of redistribution and incentive theories, our evidence suggests that industries with low paper trail and industries supported by parliamentarians have more tax evasion. We conclude by commenting on the property right of informal income.

'Ο κόσμος το χει τούμπανο και μεις κρυφό καμάρι'

The authors used post codes to plot tax evasion across the Republic. Darker colours denote the worst. In the middle of the circle on the map is Larissa, an area where there are, according to news reports, the largest number of the German Porsche Cayennes in Europe - from a Greek forum:

 'Πολύ ενδιαφέρον άρθρο που χρησιμοποιεί τις τραπεζικές εκτιμήσεις εισοδημάτων -σε αντίθεση με τα δηλωμένα εισοδήματα- για να εκτιμήσει τη φοροδιαφυγή. Η εκτίμηση είναι πως υπάρχει >28 δις εισόδημα που δεν δηλώνεται και οι top στην φοροδιαφυγή είναι: γιατροί, μηχανικοί, "ιδιαίτερα μαθήματα", λογιστές, χρηματοικονομικοί, και δικηγόροι. 

Table 11 on p.47 compares the distribution of occupational backgrounds of MPs in Greece and Canada. Columns 4 and 7 ("Density") present the percentage of members of parliament in each occupation and columns 5 and 8 present the cumulative density. The authors exclude lawyers 'as the default profession for politicians.'

See earlier on Democracy Street: 'the horror ~ how corruption works'
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To London to see Charles Webster of Delta Leisure about progress on the sales of my stepfather's re-issued Out of Town programmes on DVD. Lunch at Seafresh; London charged with pre-Olympic buzz; tiresome commercials from corporate sponsors. I feel detached. I'd like it all to go well and for the 'legacy' side to succeed. I also like the elision of Olympics and Paralympics - the latter clearly no longer a side-show for the main event, with some of those competing in the para-Olympics using prosthetics that make them faster, higher or stronger than those competing in the former. The weather stays grey. I made it back to Euston just as the clouds opened yet again, having bought myself, on the way back, a jacket from Oxfam.
"You smell like a tramp" said Amy the other day.
I'm not good to my clothes - especially jackets. I pick them from charity shops; wear them everywhere until they grow threadbare with worn sleeves, split pockets, threads hanging loose, lining separated. The sweat of my labours from digging mingles sourly with the smell of dog and prolonged periods of rain damp. I excuse myself that the time I spend in the open, refreshes the cloth but Amy was sat close when we went for lunch on Monday. Even I could catch my whiff - which must have reminded my daughter of the derelicts she's often attending to on her urban beat. "Does he smell trampy or just old?" added Richard at the time.

Rain at Euston

The weather in Greece

Richard Pine's latest letter from Greece in the Irish Times reminds me the extent to which people on the island and our village and Richard's had supported SYRIZA and were surpised to find the lead taken by New Democracy in the last week of the June election campaign. He comments on the doleful state of Corfu's tourism and makes reference to Paul Krugman, Nobel winning economist, who argues that 'the origins of this disaster lie further north, in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin, where officials created a deeply – perhaps fatally – flawed monetary system, then compounded the problems of that system by substituting moralising for analysis.' (My American friend Tony on the role of the Federal Reserve Bank in the US)
I have no illusions about the need for government reform in Greece - especially in health, taxation - it's cheaper to bribe the taxman than to pay the tax...

In December 2011, the head of the Greek Anti-Tax Evasion Unit, publicly described the 4-4-2 system in which the default rule between Greek tax collectors and tax evaders is that 40% of a taxpayer's assessment of evasion would be forgiven; 40% would be paid to the tax agent; and the remaining 20% would be paid to the state...(p.27 op.cit.)*

...and planning, but a whole population is suffering because of habitual corruption in the ruling class of the republic - in which I must include doctors, engineers, private tutors, accountants, financial service agents, and lawyers. The 4-4-2 system has been described personally to me by an acquaintance of someone who speaks of its normality.

But even if the matter of tax evasion begins to be solved, there's the larger problem of an economic ideology which traps intelligent people. I pray there is a solution that selectively feeds the possibility of credit into the thousands of small businesses - including those that rely on tourism - the life blood of the Hellenic economy. But first it seems those in charge of the present drive to absolute austerity must acknowledge that there is 'a fatally flawed monetary system'. It's not just Greece that suffers from that (and I'm not arguing for an ideological Keynesian). I suspect there must be fiscal union. There must be a greater and wider surrender of sovereignty - so that we move towards a united states of Europe, with the most assiduous attention to states rights.

*The main Law Enforcement Agencies combating economic crime in Greece, are the Finance and Economic Crime Unit (SDOE), the service of Economic Police of Hellenic Police (HP) and the Hellenic Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). The government has established other institutions and authorities with powers to combat economic crime - Public Taxes Services (DOY), the Custom Offices, the Controlling Centers, the Economic Inspectors and the Hellenic Coast Guard (HGC)... extract from Korontzis Tryfon 'The Prosecution of Economic Crime in Hellas', International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 5; March 2012. Tryfon's conclusion acknowledges 'Hellas allocates many controlling mechanisms, however their results in the combating the phenomenon of criminality cannot be considered as satisfactory.'

[Back to the future - 26 July'12 Athens News 'Record rates of tax evasion on islands']
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Danny, a superlative gardener, came to look at our allotment.
"It's kempt" she said.
I beamed with pleasure...There's so much to do and learn but praise is sweet.

"It's kempt" - plot 14 enjoying sun for a few hours on Wednesday

ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ 7:28...ἡ δὲ ἀπεκρίθη καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· (ναί), κύριε· καὶ τὰ κυνάρια ὑποκάτω τῆς τραπέζης ἐσθίουσιν ἀπὸ τῶν ψιχίων τῶν παιδίων, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ διὰ τοῦτον τὸν λόγον ὕπαγε, ἐξελήλυθεν ἐκ τῆς θυγατρός σου τὸ δαιμόνιον.καὶ ἀπελθοῦσα εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς εὗρεν τὸ παιδίον βεβλημένον ἐπὶ τὴν κλίνην καὶ τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐξεληλυθός. 

This has long puzzled me; an astonishing exchange, replete with an understanding of context - much lost to us; an exemplary moment. I'm very moved by the Greek woman's earnest wit, the mother's persistence, on behalf of her afflicted child and Christ's gentle and astonishing breach of contemporary social, racial, cultural and spiritual conventions. Dogs! "...cast it unto the dogs""Yet the dogs..." Μεγαλύνει ἡ ψυχή μου τὸν κύριον

But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. Ἄφεσ πρῶτον χορτασθῆναι τὰ τέκνα, οὐ γάρ ἐστιν καλὸν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ τοῖς κυναρίοις βαλεῖν.
And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. Ναί, κύριε· καὶ τὰ κυνάρια ὑποκάτω τῆς τραπέζης ἐσθίουσιν ἀπὸ τῶν ψιχίων τῶν παιδίων. It's a most risky joke between two people. If one missed the point it would fall cruelly flat. I wonder if those listening got it - until much later.

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A sweet email from someone I last saw when I was 19.

Hallo Simon, I have always found that Time, the expression, is misleading. People will insist on measuring, splitting and counting. As far as I can see, things are. Above all, what you are, what you do or make, is. How do you split that into increments? So I will happily take up a conversation of yore! Great pictures of you. I looked at the face under the cap and there in your mouth was our Simon...Best!

Lymington 1962...

Corfu 2009...