Please help - bailiffs

sizzlebird1

Hi
I am new here, very scared and worried, here is what's happening...
My husband has an old council tax debt going back to 2003, this has been passed to Dukes bailiffs. The debt was 2 seperate council tax years so it totals £1440. Dukes initially wrote to him in November and he offered to pay £60 per month which they declined. They turned up on the doorstep about three weeks ago - two men, one massive guy who was very intimidating stood there with his arms folded, I was petrified, told them we didn't have the money and they said they would be back. Anyway we spoke to the council and asked them to take the debt back, they said no but they put the account on hold for 28 days. In the meantime we rang this bailiff guy and asked if we could set up an arrangement, he said he needed £800 upfront and then then two installments of £475 - this included £320 of bailiff's fees. We don't have the money so we said we couldn't do it. Have rang the council on numerous occasions asking them to take the debt back but they keep saying no. The council have now lifted the hold so the bailiff has said he will take £500 upfront and then he will do a walking posession order. I rang national debtline who told me not to let them in, and not to agree to the walking posession order. They also said that they can only charge a maximum of £42.50 per account as long as they haven't entered the property which they haven't. We have paid the council £100 directly on their website as per what national debtline told us what to do, and we have written to them saying we will pay £150 per month. The bailiff has left a load of messages today on my phone (I forgot to withold the number when I called him) asking me to call him urgently. I really don't know what to do next. Sorry it's so long. We are worried sick about this now, hope somebody can advise us what to do next. Thanks in advance

fatbelly

sizzlebird1 wrote: »

...the bailiff has said he will take £500 upfront and then he will do a walking posession order.

Not if you refuse to give him peaceable entry, he won't. National Debtline's advice to you is good.

Roerto Moir has written a guide to what constitutes peaceable entry here

Your message to the bailiff (to be delivered through the letterbox or an upstairs window) is that you are making payment to the council and they are accepting your payments.

The £42.50 charge ND referrred to is for two visits so you have just got to get through your second visit without a walking possession arrangement. Make sure doors are locked, windows closed and car (if you have one) parked elsewhere. If they do something stupid like (yes I have known this) levying against garden trellis or flowerpots, come back for futher advice.

sizzlebird1

Thanks for you reply, are they just pulling a fast one with the charges then? thanks

RobertoMoir

The council have put this on hold but the bailiff is still calling you? I would contact the council, TELL them (not ask them "is it true that") that you are aware that the bailiffs are their agents whose actions they are responsible for, and that their agents are still harassing you when the case is on hold.

Then tell them that you believe that fees have been illegally added to the file, based on the £320 worth of fees, it isn't possible to legally rack that up in a couple of visits if at all, and that you will be forced to consider what your legal options are if the bailiffs continue to attempt to claim illegally charged fees from you.

Tell (again, don't ask) the council that you require a breakdown of the fees charged by themselves and the bailiffs to this point. If you do not have it already, tell them you require the name of the certificated bailiff who is "running" your case. Post the breakdown here and we'll proceed from there.

If they mess you about on any of the above, contact your local councillor at once and ask them to help you with the above. Be nice to that one though, they are elected to help you, and they are the person you want on your side.

sizzlebird1

Thanks Roberto, will ring them in the morning. A family member has offered to lend us £500 so am I best just offering that straight to the council tomorrow?

RobertoMoir

sizzlebird1 wrote: »

Thanks Roberto, will ring them in the morning. A family member has offered to lend us £500 so am I best just offering that straight to the council tomorrow?

Well if you can pay the whole council tax debt off to the council in the meantime they will probably be happy to call it back and cancel any bailiff charges. Especially when they see what you're going to tell them if my suspicions about the charges added are correct.

If you can't pay it off at once, then (once we have more info on the fees) you could use the £500 payment as a way of greasing the way for them to recall the debt from the bailiff and you paying the remainder off to them by arrangement.

If you do speak to the council, make it clear that you realise you have to pay the outstanding council tax plus any fees the council themselves have incurred, but before you put down the £500 you want to know for sure that the debt will be recalled from the bailiff and any of their charges struck.

sizzlebird1

Thanks very much for your help, I will let you know what they say tomorrow

MyopicMoo

Hi,
Treat these bailiffs as you would any bully - don't play into their hands and stand up to them. We have several sets of arrears, two of which are with bailiffs. The first thing I did was to check out the legal side - what rights I had and what rights they have, it makes you feel more confident when dealing with them - look at the OFT guidelines for debt collection and the national debtline and direct gov sites. Don't believe those TV shows about bailiffs, they all show people letting them in - main rule is never let them in.

Secondly, don't panic yourself into paying more than you can afford. Work out a Statement of Affairs (SOA) - as this is a priority debt you need to pay it before credit cards and any unsecured debts, if necessary, reduce the non-priority debts (most of ours were fine with this when we explained the situation). Put an offer of payment in writing to the council and the bailiff and set up a standing order to pay the council. It helps if you can include a SOA so they can see what money you have. I paid the council until I had a written agreement from the bailiffs or until the bailiffs provided their bank details for the SO (not a DD). Don't pay by card via the bailiff sites, they usually add big charges - some as much as 5-10%. :eek:

Most of the councils accepted our offer, one bailiff company did not - we kept paying them (they did give us their details) and occasionally got a threatening letter but we just wrote back explaining that was what we could afford. What made me more comfortable was knowing that, if they did try to take me to court, I could show that I had made an offer of payment and kept to it, and that it was all I could afford.

Hopefully we will clear the last of our arrears next month. It is really a lesson learnt! Sorry for such a long post but I hope it is useful to you.

Good luck

RobertoMoir

A friend of mine let a bailiff into their house once. They came in, saw me sitting on the couch drinking tea and went straight back out again, didn't try to levy, didn't anything. They never heard from the bailiff company again. Most weird.

I wouldn't recommend it as a normal course of action though.

ladybez

Roberto, you could get yourself a new job just sitting on sofas!!!

kaya

if the debt is in your husbands name i would type out a declaration of ownership affadavit in YOUR name, go to a solicitor and pay them £5 to witness you signing the affadavit, present it to the bailiffs when they next show up and they will have no option but to go away, tried and tested personally, they can only take stuff belong to your husband as its his debt(not yours), the onus is on you to prove ownership of items and not the bailiffs, if you swear an affadavit that all the goods/property and any vehicles belong to you and you alone the bailiffs would be guilty of theft if the attempt to levy on or remove anything from the property, it will take you 5 mins to type one out and 5 mins to get it signed, your husband will still owe the money to the council but the bailiffs will have to return the debt to the council and will be completely powerless to act, i recently sent an affadavit to marstons bailiffs who were demanding £20,000 from me, they didnt even bother contacting me again, i know how intimidating bailiffs can be but they have rules also, and if they break them they will have there licence revoked and will no longer be bailiffs, follow my advice and i can promise you they will leave you alone, i dont have the link any longer on my pc but in a few of my previous postings(before christmas) i have copied and pasted the affadavit, simply fill in the blanks


here you go, copy this:

I (insert oh's name and address here)
make this statement knowing that it may be presented to a Court and believing the contents to be true.

1. I am the lawful owner of the aforementioned address and own all its contents and I declare there is no entitlement enabling anyone to change ownership, possession, location, use and enjoyment of my goods or deprive me of them for the purposes of using it as leverage for obtaining a money transfer from somebody else.

2. I further declare that any bailiff or person seeking a money transfer from somebody else including members of my household may not consider my goods property and chattels to be prima facie to be the property of, or belonging to somebody else.

3. This statement will be served on a firm of bailiffs known as

of by ordinary course of post and will be considered good service under Section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978 as they have made a threat to convert my goods to somebody else’s use.

4. I believe that the facts given in this statement are true.


[NAME] _______________________


Date__________________________


Sworn before me:


______________________________
An officer of the Court/commissioner for oaths