Bailiffs demand £1068

Quintain_2

My son and his wife have just phoned from 200 miles away in Durham. They received a visit from a Bailiff on Monday 20th (with a hand delivered letter dated 18th) demanding £1068 inside 7 days - or goods will be taken away in lieu. The Bailiff listed goods in the house.

Subsequent conversation with son and D in L tells me that in June 2005 they had unpaid Council Tax of £296 from the period Apr 2003 - March 2004. They were contacted by Bailiffs in June 2005 who asked for the £296 plus their charges of £249, a total of £545. Son and wife agreed to pay off the debt at £40 per week.
They only made 3 weekly payments and then 'forgot' in the build-up to their Wedding mid July.
When the couple then contacted the Bailiffs by phone early August they were told that they should 'catch-up' the arreas by paying at the rate of £60 per week.
Not being able to afford this, they have stuck their heads in the sand - and made no further payments.

Son lost his job early last December. Bailiffs were contacted by phone. The couple sent off statements of affairs. .............. The Bailiffs wrote and said they would take no actions for 3 weeks, which period ended 7th February - (this letter is proving difficult to find).

The couple have two young children. Son has this week taken the only job he's been offered since December - a contracted 17 hours per week at minimum pay plus more hours if available.

Daughter in Law has kept no records of any hand written correspondence she's sent to the Bailiffs, nor any record of the 'many' phone conversations with them.

I ask if anyone can tell me: -

How can £296 plus £249 charges, less £120 paid now become £1068.

What options are open to them?

What should they now do?

rchddap1

Quintain wrote:

How can £296 plus £249 charges, less £120 paid now become £1068

Simple...Baliff charges added on.

Quintain wrote:

What options are open to them?

Difficult to say except to pay them what they want. The problem is that they have been let into the property....which gives them the authority to come back and re-enter the property whenever they wish.

Hopefully some more people will be along to advise...but the only option I can see is to pay them, or to come to some agreed sum.

bonnie_2

i think theyll have to cough up, you can go to prison for non payment of council debt.
which is why it is a priority bill to pay on time.

Xbigman

Tell them to get down to the local citizens advice bureau. They will have to come to an agreement to pay and this will be much easier through a third party. Also, kick them in the backside. Council tax is one debt that must be paid and they have been very silly in 'forgetting' to pay it.
Regards



X

beanielou

Hate to say it but there will be little the CAB will be able to do at this stage as they have already made arrangements and then not stuck to them for whatever reason.
They could try but tell them not to be surpised if theres little joy.
As has been pointed out council tax is one debt which should be a priority debt as there are sanctions if it is not paid.
As you asked yourself how can the debt of £200+ become £1000+ , well thats often the difficulty once the debt is passed on to a third party.Scary.
Good luck

fatbelly

What goods have they listed? Is it realistic that they would fetch £1068 at auction? If not try to get the order returned to the council as 'insufficient goods'.

The council can withdraw the matter from the bailiffs at any time but they would have to be persuaded that this route is not going to come up with the money. One way or another it has to be paid, or at least the valid amount does. Maybe suggesting an Attachment of Earnings Order would do it.

It's worth requesting a breakdown of their figures. Bailiff charges are fixed and published. Have a look at this factsheet and see if you can make the charges add up to £900!

Marisan

HI,

As others have pointed out,Council Tax is a priority debt and has to be paid.The powers that councils have are awesome and scary,including sending non-payers to prison at the last resort (as has been demonstrated.)

You should never,ever agree to an arrangement with any creditor and then fail to keep to it.From their point of view,why should they give you a second chance?

That said,I would still try the CAB..bottom line is that they will have to pay up,but the CAB might be able to help.

bambam00

hi quintain

i sympathise with your situation, its not nice worrying about someone elses problems. as most have said above there is actually very little that can be done at this point. the bailiffs i am sure will have all the costs documented that will cover them to collect the debt and charges of over 1K. the only option your son and dil has is to pay the debt / lose the goods the bailiffs listed or find somebody else to pay the debt for them. the bailiffs will not give up and will act as quickly as they can to ensure they can at least cover some of their fees.

the worst thing anybody can do is bury their head in the sand, it almost always makes situations much worse

Angel_Advisor

Hi, I work in a Council Tax Dept, it's usually taken a very long time for a C/tax debt to get this far and they would have had many, many chances to set an arrangement & make p'mnts. Sadly, once it is passed out to Bailiffs, they incur charges from the Bailiff Company for every phone call, visit, letter etc. They urgently need to go back to their Council, preferably in person & explain their circumstances. Within the area they live, they should have a Legal Advice Service which specialises in this kind of debt & they can obtain 'FREE' legal advice to help them sort this out. CAB can help & often a 'Statement of Affairs' which can be done by the Council can also be done.
Have they tried talking directly to the Bailiff Company again. They really shouldn't have let the Bailiffs through the front door as once they have a list of their goods they can come back & distrain(take goods away) which again they will be charged for them visiting & also Van charges should a Van be required to remove their property. I am really sorry they are in this situation & I hope they seek further advice URGENTLY. There are many people in a similar situation & sadly no's are increasing. Let us know how they get on.
As a last note, it is very rare for people to be imprisoned for non-payment of Council Tax, the threat is always there but it is used in only very rare cases.

jesster_2

As your CAB if there's a Financial Inclusion project or similar in your area. I know the chap who runs the one in my area, and i have watched him negotiate away a large proportion of someone's bailiff charges, because he said the charged were 'unreasonable'. (They'd charged for visits when the people hadn't been home etc, which is unreasonable.)
He had stern words with the bailiffs, strong but polite ones with the council who'd originally sold the debt, and the Council was able to get the majority of the charged removed. But he told me bailiffs do this all the time, and many of the charges can be removed as 'unreasonable'.
Do NOT just put up with it: it took him a few hours and several phone calls, but wiped almost 700 quid off the debt. Good luck.

TAG

I agree with all of the above posts and can only repeat what has already been said.

Years ago my ex husband and I had Council Tax debts as well as numerous other debts. We had numerous visits from the Council Tax office, Liability orders and made arrangements to pay etc, etc. This went on for about 3 or 4 years.

To cut a long story short. When we split up the arrears ended up being sold to the baliffs and ex made the mistake of letting them in. They listed goods and because he's 'forgotten' to make payments on time he is now on his last chance to keep to the arrangement. Silly part about it is that the value of the goods they listed now exceed the amount outstanding.

As everyone else has said Council Tax is a priority bill/debt and must be paid.

I appreciate that you are worried, but sometimes people have to learn the hard way before they learn what financial responsibilities are.

I hope it all works out. Good luck!

Tag