Bailiff Threat - please help!

Hi

The first thing I did yesterday was to ring the council tax dept and they were wonderful and very helpful. They are sending me a weekly payment booklet for one lot of council tax and they said to speak to the bailiff about the other lot and that 'paying in instalments wouldn't be a problem' but the bailiff said the call centre had no right to tell me that and that its down to him whether or not they accept instalments.

Have been doing a lot of reading up on the web surrounding this since posting my original message and am coming to the conclusion that bailiffs are bullies and use scare-tactics to make you cough up or let them take your stuff. Now have contacts for my local councillors (who will help if no one else will), my magistrates court and a form to suspend the warrant and the council tax office. Also seeing the Neighbourhood Office at 2.00 so hopefully they can help too.

Thanks

Katie

Hi, thanks, feeling much more relaxed about it now. Neighbourhood Office pretty much confirmed what I'd read on the internet and re-iterated about not letting the bailiff in. It'll go back to court and then I can plead my case to them.

My finances are pretty woeful, but I'm going to sort them out this week and get everything back on track properly.

Thanks for the concern

Katie

Wow, everyone is so supportive on here - unlike the lying, intimidating bailiff I'm trying to deal with. Thanks everyone for your advice and support and here's the latest:

Got home from Uni today to find another letter from the bailiff's company, saying that he would be calling and to ring them to arrange a payment plan. The letter was dated 1.11.07, so has taken almost a week to reach me, during which time they've passed it on to the man in question.

Spoke to the company who said weekly payments would be fine and to go into their offices each week and pay what I could afford. Great, I thought, and phoned the bailiff back (cos he'd left me a message on my mobile). He then told me that a) any advice given by either Neighbourhood Office or CAB is advice only and should be pretty much ignored, b) the office should not have spoken to me and he will be getting whoever spoke to me 'into trouble' for doing so, c) there is no way I can set up a payment plan with anyone, d) there is no way out of this whatsoever and I either pay the full amount or he will keep coming back until I let him in to remove goods for auction.

He also said that contrary to popular belief he does have a legal right to enter the property (but only if one of us opens the door to him) and that he will keep coming back for as long as it takes. The man thinks he's God. He said there is nothing I can do to turn this around and no one can help me. He's intimidating and terrible to deal with, but in a non-agressive way as they can't do that!

Spoke to the council tax office again, in near hysterics, and the wonderful man was very kind and said he's going to ask his manager to recall the debt back to their office and to give it til Friday morning before ringing them back and appealing if they don't get back to me before then,

To answer the questions asked of me:

1) I do have something from the Uni to get council tax benefit, but does this depend on my other half's wages or is it irrelevant?

2) The tax credits people told me that I should get more child tax credit to help towards childcare, but I'm dubious about applying for it because I always end up out of pocket with them due to 'overpayments' (this happens every year, despite us only getting the bare minimum for the last two).

3) I have the paperwork for the Uni Access Fund and am getting all the stuff together for that this evening, so that will go in tomorrow.

4) Will post an SOA tomorrow (hopefully) when I've gone through everything this evening.

Can anyone shed any further light on the bailiff thing cos I'm terrified of him knocking the door and refusing to go away, especially as I'm on my own with two kids all week.

Thanks in advance

Katie