Handling bailiffs - do I have to pay everything?

Poosmate

Personally I'd have called the bailiff before the CAB to let them know the matter is being dealt with and to stop them calling around again and incurring more fees. It may be some time before you can get an appointment with the CAB so you may want to try to find another source of advice too.

I hope your fine doesn't go any higher than £265 and although it's a lot of money hope you learn something really useful from it i.e. don't forget fines and get more organised with your finances! It could well be the best £265 you ever spend!

Poo

RobertoMoir

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

With all due respect there is no need for that. I'm guessing you've had a bad experience with someone from the CAB but the valuable work we do doesn't deserve such blatant insults as that.

With all due respect yourself, I know there are good individuals such as yourself at the CAB but the quality of the support given, especially to people with this type of problem is variable to say the very least. Until that changes then sorry, but there IS need for that. My intention was not to personally offend you but to suggest that people be wary of advice from an organisation whose sincerity I do not doubt but which in my experience appears to be stepping outside of its area of competence when advising people on how to deal with bailiffs.

When I worked as a bailiff, countless people took advice from the CAB about the actions of myself, my colleagues and the councils instructing us. Without exception the advice was never, ever helpful; the consequences of this advice ranged from merely doing nothing to help the debtor one way or another to making things much worse for them if they followed advice.

Example: A debtor being told by CAB they don't have to let me into their house when I was already (legally) in their house, and that they could remove me from their property and ignore anything I said. Or that I didn't have right of entry to a property when actually I did. (This last one seemed to stem from an utter inability to understand the 'rights' of bailiffs changed depending on what type of warrant they were enforcing and what paperwork, e.g. walking possession, might already exist).

This happened repeatedly, and the consequences arranged from the debtor being arrested for assault for trying to physically remove me and having their goods removed there and then because their actions forced me to conclude they were a poor candidate for an arrangement, all the way to not assaulting me at least but still having their goods removed.

As I regarded each time I was forced to remove goods from a house as a total failure this wasn't something I did lightly, but the CAB's instructions to the debtor were leaving me with no choice.

Another Example: Telling people who I had served an arrest warrant with bail on that they didn't have to take any notice of it. Again a repeated occurrence when people phoned the CAB for advice.

Guess what that earned them? Arrest with no bail and the wrath of the judge. Another great service to the client there.

Like I said before, sorry if you're personally offended. I know there are good individuals in the CAB who are knowledgeable in various areas, I know MSE is lucky to have some of them posting here, and I know you try your best. But as an organisation, sorry but I have little confidence in the CAB.

immoral_angeluk

RobertoMoir wrote: »

With all due respect yourself, I know there are good individuals such as yourself at the CAB but the quality of the support given, especially to people with this type of problem is variable to say the very least. Until that changes then sorry, but there IS need for that. My intention was not to personally offend you but to suggest that people be wary of advice from an organisation whose sincerity I do not doubt but which in my experience appears to be stepping outside of its area of competence when advising people on how to deal with bailiffs.

When I worked as a bailiff, countless people took advice from the CAB about the actions of myself, my colleagues and the councils instructing us. Without exception the advice was never, ever helpful; the consequences of this advice ranged from merely doing nothing to help the debtor one way or another to making things much worse for them if they followed advice.

Example: A debtor being told by CAB they don't have to let me into their house when I was already (legally) in their house, and that they could remove me from their property and ignore anything I said. Or that I didn't have right of entry to a property when actually I did. (This last one seemed to stem from an utter inability to understand the 'rights' of bailiffs changed depending on what type of warrant they were enforcing and what paperwork, e.g. walking possession, might already exist).

This happened repeatedly, and the consequences arranged from the debtor being arrested for assault for trying to physically remove me and having their goods removed there and then because their actions forced me to conclude they were a poor candidate for an arrangement, all the way to not assaulting me at least but still having their goods removed.

As I regarded each time I was forced to remove goods from a house as a total failure this wasn't something I did lightly, but the CAB's instructions to the debtor were leaving me with no choice.

Another Example: Telling people who I had served an arrest warrant with bail on that they didn't have to take any notice of it. Again a repeated occurrence when people phoned the CAB for advice.

Guess what that earned them? Arrest with no bail and the wrath of the judge. Another great service to the client there.

Like I said before, sorry if you're personally offended. I know there are good individuals in the CAB who are knowledgeable in various areas, I know MSE is lucky to have some of them posting here, and I know you try your best. But as an organisation, sorry but I have little confidence in the CAB.

Thank you for this, it's nice to have the view from the other side and I do agree, that the advice is variable dependant on the advisor, and ideally clients with severe debt problems should only be advised by a specialist really, but the trouble is that the CAB is very much reliant on volunteers and there is admittedly a margin for error there, at which point it is down to the management to ensure the correct information reaches the client ASAP. I'm sorry you've had problems indirectly though and were even assaulted!

DarkConvict

My previous landlord was a CAB advisor. And he provided some useful advice, but it was rather generic, pointing at National Debtline, CCCS and PayPlan as theplaces to go. There are so many things CAB are asked to handle it is not an easy job, so is best to point them in the direction of organisations in specific areas like the debt charities example. However in case of bailiffs there is little accurate information out their except for Herbie21 website and lawyers in that specific field. From topics i have read on this website it is certainly an area CAB could do to improve on, production of decent leaflets on bailiffs would be best rather than trying to train up some staff with more info.

Ames

I've had terrible advice from CAB in the past. I think the problem is that the front line staff don't know enough, just who to refer onto, and the specialists only know about their area. So in my case, a debt person looked at the problem but didn't know about the benefit side (council tax) and gave me wildly wrong advice.

immoral_angeluk

DarkConvict wrote: »

My previous landlord was a CAB advisor. And he provided some useful advice, but it was rather generic, pointing at National Debtline, CCCS and PayPlan as theplaces to go. There are so many things CAB are asked to handle it is not an easy job, so is best to point them in the direction of organisations in specific areas like the debt charities example. However in case of bailiffs there is little accurate information out their except for Herbie21 website and lawyers in that specific field. From topics i have read on this website it is certainly an area CAB could do to improve on, production of decent leaflets on bailiffs would be best rather than trying to train up some staff with more info.

There should definitely be more investment in having more specialist caseworkers for debt across the board, but sadly due to the way it's funded it's almost a postcode lottery dependant on councils and funding as to how many debt caseworkers a bureau will have, which of course puts added pressure on the generalist advisors who are only trained to ave generic knowledge and be able to know where to find the information and where to get further support if needed whereas obviously specialist caseworkers are focused on one area,

immoral_angeluk

Ames wrote: »

I've had terrible advice from CAB in the past. I think the problem is that the front line staff don't know enough, just who to refer onto, and the specialists only know about their area. So in my case, a debt person looked at the problem but didn't know about the benefit side (council tax) and gave me wildly wrong advice.

That's really not good, debt, housing,consumer issues and benefits go hand in hand so should go with the territory to some degree.

never-in-doubt

Ames wrote: »

I've had terrible advice from CAB in the past. I think the problem is that the front line staff don't know enough, just who to refer onto, and the specialists only know about their area. So in my case, a debt person looked at the problem but didn't know about the benefit side (council tax) and gave me wildly wrong advice.

Is this the same CAB on New York Street? lol - they are a shambles..... I dealt with them a few times when I worked with JC+ and the amount of people they told that they would get benefit (that were not entitled) was shocking..... I thought they closed it and revamped it, but to be honest haven't been near that side of Leeds in like 4 years or so!

Ames

Yes it was that one. I told them about council tax arrears which were in dispute as I was on council tax benefit at the time and was being dealt with by a benefits specialist who'd told me not to worry about it. They phoned the benefits agency and told me I had to arrange a deduction from my benefits or I could go to jail. They didn't tell me that I had no right to cancel the arrangement, and my welfare rights guy went mad when I told him. It was a real fight once the dispute was sorted to get them to stop taking deductions and give me back my money.

And I asked them to complain about my biggest debt - I took it out when having a bipolar episode and the loan company admitted to me that I broke their lending criteria and someone had approved when they should have declined. I was hoping that I could get the interest taken off and only have to pay the loan amount, which would have made my debts manageable. But they refused, saying I might as well just go bankrupt.

To be fair though, CCCS were the same when it came to debt and benefits, so it's not just a CAB thing.