Has anyone challenged the OR decision?

Izabel

Has anyone challenged the OR decision?

I’m looking into disputing the OR decision (advice already received on another thread that they may be wrong) to take £533 of back pay for last years CTC but I’m worried this will annoy them.

Can or will they make things more difficult for us?

storminbalder

I challenged them politely over a redundancy payment of nearly five and a half thousand pounds. They had informed me informally that i'd be allowed to keep it. I declared it the day I recieved it and was aghast to discover by return of post that they wanted immediate payment of the full amount.

I immediately challenged this and had to give full explanation of why I "needed" to keep as much as possible of it in writing. I did so, and spoke at length to an assistant OR by phone a few times. He explained he'd been surprised by the decision to take any of it at all. They really did sympathise and bent over backwards to try to allow me to keep as much as possible.

End result, they took approximately 60% and allowed me to keep the other 40%. I was obviously much happier with this.

I did this also in arguing why I should be allowed to keep my car. Much to my surprise I did keep it!

Advise. Have your arguments ready and fully prepared. And be civilised and polite at all times. Don't be confrontational. They do seem to have some serious lee way and certainly in my experience, do try to accomodate you as much as possible.

blind-as-a-bat_2

Izabel as i said in your thread we can only give you the information to challenged the OR not the courage

We cant answer your question as we dont know your examiner but the replys you got show in black and white s/he is wrong

If it does annoy him/her then they are acting inapropriatly for wich there is a complaints procedure

The choice is yours but in my view they are in the wrong wich is backed up with the extracts of the reletive legeslation both myself and fermi posted.

Izabel

I understand the decision is mine and I'm preparing my case as we speak but I was looking for other people experiences both good and bad.

ClaireLR

Hi Izabel

I challeneged the OR over an IPA that they wanted to put in place that I didn't agree with. The whole story is a little long to type but the end result was that I didn't end up paying the IPA - so they obviously knew they were in the wrong. If you want to read about it then take a look at my diary.

If you fully believe that you are right then you have to fight it, you've got nothing to lose so go for it!! I know it can be scary - I was worried about ending up in court over my IPA but if that had happened then at least it would have been sorted one way or the other.

Be brave - if Fermi and BAAB think you're in the right then I'd go for it!!!

PixiePie

Me too - I challenged him over my car and managed to reduce it's cost from £600 to £200. As the others say - as long as you are polite you are doing nothing wrong in anyone's eyes, and if you say nothing you *definitely* aren't going to get the decision you want, so you may as well go for it - nothing ventured nothing gained and all that. Just remember the OR is only a human and that it's a human you are PAYING to handle your BR affairs for you - that makes it a little easier imho to see them as a lacky and not a god figure and therefore get the courage to challenge things.

Good luck

december

Just a quick point from my perspective. I think it's hard to stand up to an OR if you're like me and view the whole situation as one which you are ashamed of or feel guilty about. When I got a dressing down last week in a sense I felt as though I deserved it, when my self esteem returned and I was more assertive with her, strangely enough she was more polite. What I'm trying to get is that ORs have rules that they have to follow and at the end of the day Pixie is right, you are paying them (directly or indirectly) to administer your bankruptcy.

December

JCS1

Do challange your examiner on this, you may want to try phoning your OR office, give your court details and ask for name/speak to the Assistant Official Receiver allocated to your case. If the AOR doesn't get anywhere, then write to the OR, if you write to OR straight away, he'll only pass to AOR then you've lost your back up plan.

brimau_2

My OR was adamant that i had to repay my Council Tax Benefit Overpayment. The Council offices said the same and even issued me with a court summons! BUT>>> I had been told otherwise by the British Legion. With the help of Debt Doctor (on this site) i wrote directly to the courts and attached the right evidence. Summons cancelled, Council tax records amended and the OR has been dutifully 'updated' that the inclusion of those benefit overpayments into BR were indeed correct. Just because they hold the post OR, it does not make them infallible.....