Beat the Bailiff-Urgent advice needed

williambrown · 1 August 2007 at 9:11PM

Please can someone help.
I received today a card through the door regarding a ‘pre-bailiff visit’.
I received one of these last November from the same man which at the time was for £120.00 and I was able to pay.
So here are some facts:
My debt is roughly £411.00
I am currently on benefits
I have a fiancé and two year old to support
My fiancé is unable to work due to circumstance since our daughters birth (they know this also)
I received a card november last year and paid it
They refused my offer of £5.00 a month I made last year when I was unemployed because they said it would not work in their system and could only take £10.00 (this was BEFORE the CCJ)
The amount at that time was £511.00 (I have paid nothing since)
I could not pay it so received a CCJ
When I received the CCJ I was unemployed and they new this
This debt is to a store card company (does that make it a Credit card?)
I am now struggling financially and am in part time education.
They have sent me two letters in the past few weeks and that is the first time they have contacted me this year before this ‘pre-bailiff visit’
I have not contacted this collector since he left the card

HELP!
What can I do if anything?
Does anyone know if there is a law or loophole I can incite to stop this process?

viktory · 1 August 2007 at 9:17PM

OK, don't panic. You don't have to let the bailiffs into your home, in fact I would strongly advise you don't. Call the number on the card and advise that you will be writing to them to make an offer of payment. Don't let them bully on the phone, tell them you want all dealings to be in writing. I think that they have to accept a payment offer from you and seeing you are on a low income it will be a low offer.

There will be more experienced posters along shortly (they are like buses, wait ages and then three come along at once!

)

williambrown · 1 August 2007 at 9:20PM

Thank you for that really fast response!!
actually, he is not a bailiff(so he said) but he is something else, a debt collector i suppose.
thanks again
william

RAS · 1 August 2007 at 9:36PM

OK

Can you contact the court where the CCJ was issued and check out if they have the right to send in the bailiffs. You should have had correspondence from the court if they were making an application.

They are almost certainly breaking all sorts of OFT Guidelines. I will try and post up the link.

1. They have to accept reasonable payments. If you are on benefits then £1 per month is reasonable, not what their system allows.

2.They have been misrepresenting their powers if they suggest a "pre-bailiff visit" and they do not have the court papers in place..

3. They have no right to visit you except by your prior agreement. A card through the door is not agreement.

4. They are misusing your ignorance of the legal system (badly if their refusal to accept £5 contributed to your decision not to respond to the CCJ notification).

if you had responded to the court papers re the CCJ, it is likely that the court would have agreed to payment terms of £1 per month and if you paid that the DCA would have no right to more (not that it would stop them from trying to get you to pay more).

You need to get an appointment with CAB ASAP and get their help negoitiating a monthly figure.

Even if they have the right to send in the bailiffs, they cannot enter your house unless you let them in.

So stop worrying about loop-holes. And start taking action to deal with this face on as you have a lot more rights than you think

RAS · 1 August 2007 at 9:38PM

If he is a debt collector, he has no rights whatsoever.

Get hold of the court and speak to CAB in the morning.

But please make arrangments, even if only to send £1 per month. They cannot refuse it.

Broken_hearted · 1 August 2007 at 9:44PM

You have breeched your payment plan so they are sending a debt collector round. You don't have to let them in but you do have to pay the debt. Being on benefits is not an excuse. You need to sort this out NOT look for a loophole.

Eager_Elephant · 1 August 2007 at 10:21PM

Hi williambrown,

Right I think I have got the jist of your situation.

Can you clarify what you did last year when you received the CCJ form from the court?

You should have been sent a form to complete to admit or defend the debt, if you failed to return the form within 14 days then the CCJ would have been granted in default.

If this is what happened then you would have received a form from the court informing you that the CCJ had been granted and that you should pay the full balance in 28 days.

If no payment is received within 28 days then the creditor has the option of asking the court bailiff to attend to remove goods and all manner of other actions.

I think the pre-bailiff visit is a debt collector type person who will come round to gather information to see if it is worth asking the bailiffs to visit. (The bailiff cost is about £60 or thereabouts which will then get added to your debt).

If as above you did not return any court forms you should go to the county court and complete an N245 which is a form to ask for your arrangement to be changed. The normal cost of this is £35 but if you are on benefits or low income you pay nothing but will need to complete Form EX160.

Make sure on the form you put the incomings and outgoings and make an offer to the court, the minimum they will want is £5.00 per month even if you are on benefits.

HTH but if you have more questions let me know.

EE

williambrown · 2 August 2007 at 3:52AM

WOW!
Thanks for the amazing response everyone!
When I said 'loophole' I sort of meant law, haha. I don't know the correct terminology!
Well when I received the forms I did not respond for a few reasons.
1. The first was that I was under the impression I was to get the CCJ no matter what.
2. I did not understand most of what the papers said and being from the 'head in the sand' school of self defense I foolishly did just that.
3. I had tried to contact the CAB and living in north London mine is almost always engaged and virtually impossible to get an appointment. I have been down there once and people were waiting from 7.00a.m. just to make an appointment.

I am currently living at my mothers with my fiancé since being made redundant. It is a council house, do either of these things affect this?

So because they lied about the £10.00 minimum payment, is there anyway I can get my CCJ removed because I WOULD have been able to pay the £5.00 if they had accepted it?? I am and was literally living by the penny and KNEW what I could and could not afford.
So I must have received it by default because I did not respond.
:mad: stupid me.
Most of what I owe on the store card IS charges. I only spent £100.00 on it, now I owe £411.00. being a credit card of sorts at this stage can I get the charges and CCJ dropped?

Thanks again everyone
William.

Newstart_4 · 2 August 2007 at 4:51AM

tell them your looking into claiming your charges back and are going to ask for the CCJ to be set aside and the case reopened,

Eager_Elephant · 2 August 2007 at 7:16AM

I don't think they have lied about the £10 minimum payment as every creditor sets their own limits about the lowest payment and you did say above that this was before the CCJ.

I don't think the CCJ can be removed as they have acted correct at all times - even if you had been paying £10 per month they could have still asked for a CCJ. The only thing that has to be proved is that the debt is owed, the court don't care about anything else.

I suggest you complete the forms I mentioned above and take to the court and then go to Martin's helpful explanation of reclaiming charges.

A store card is not a credit card but the principals of claiming charges are the same.

EE

RAS · 2 August 2007 at 2:19PM

hi

You are getting some confusing advice because it is not entirely clear what documents you have.

if CAB is to busy, then look at Martin's article on debt and ring either the national debtline or CCCs today.

You also need to get hold of the County Court. If it is just the CCJ and you have not made arrangment to pay, or ignored arrangement to pay then do as Eager elephant suggests

If as above you did not return any court forms you should go to the county court and complete an N245 which is a form to ask for your arrangement to be changed. The normal cost of this is £35 but if you are on benefits or low income you pay nothing but will need to complete Form EX160.

Re charges, at the moment the whole charges situation is stalled as the OFT and Banks are taking a legal case, see the fromt page here. If the decision is that they are not lawful, then you could re-claim them. Until the situation is sorted, you can do nothing really.

Beat the Bailiff-Urgent advice needed

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