Bristow & Sutor please help!

Tixy

No they should not be charging you for the £230 van fee prior to having got a WPO.

If you look on baliffadviceonline I think there will be template letters you could look at to help with your letter - there is certainly info on how much they are allowed to charge for CT debt visits and its far less than this.

RobertoMoir

shell7t8 wrote: »

Scared, we borrowed the money from my mum and off they went. Afterwards we got very upset about it and then in turn, angry too as we feel we have been ripped off. We have done all the legwork to try and make an agreemetn to repay the debt. B&S have NEVER visited our property or posted a note through the door. The yhave definitely never completed a walking possession order and we have nEVER signed anything with a list of our goods on it.

My question is, are they able to turn up with the van and get peaceful entry and take goods at the same time without having previously done a list of inventory or are they able to turn up, demand the money and charge the call out fee of £230 all in the same day?

I have written a letter to my council, copying in B&S and am currently waiting for a response. I am prepared to take this as far as i needs to go but want to be sure of what i'm saying before i start writing formal complaint letters etc.

Can anyone help??

Shell

They can't charge you a van fee to remove goods without previously having levied.
They can't just force their way into your house to remove goods without previously having levied.

They can gain "peaceful entry" any time they like, and remove goods. That term has a particular meaning with regards to bailiff actions and I suspect either I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say or you're mis-using it. Can you explain what you mean with that question so I can be sure what to say in reply?

You should also find out which court issued the bailiff's certificate, and complain to them too.

shell7t8

Hi,
Thanks for the reply, by peaceful entry i mean, we saw the van pull up and opened the door and let him in to the kitchen.He stood on the door step and said i'm here in respect of unpaid council tax and am here to remove goods to the value of £651 today.

We didn't want to continue the conversationon the doorstep so we let him in to discuss it. He also told us (as we were manically trying to think where we might be able to get £651 from) that for every 30 mintues he was in our property there would be another £50 addedto the bill so it was in our best interests to sort it out asap. He also suggested we ring all friends and family to "scrape" together as muchas we could as he didn't want to see us without our goods. At the time i thought he was being nice as he clearly has a job to do but in the end we just thought he was doing it because he didn't want to be bothered to take our stuff anyway - it was approaching 8pm at night.

My question is, if it is the first time they have ever been to the house and we just let them in straight away, can they force us to pay the outstanding amount or take our goods on that first visit or should we have insisted on them firstly doign a wpo? And, if so, are they then able to apply the £230 call out van fee too?

Thanks

Shell

RAS

hi


You have been tricked into letting them in and now they can charge much higher fees and return to remove your goods.

You are now obliged to let them in when they return.

Please get hold of Herbie21 ASAP
, will post the link in a mo.

RAS

You should speak to Herbie21 about it urgently http://www.bailiffadviceonline.co.uk/

She does charge 60p per minute for the calls but you are in such a mess that this could save you money in the long run.

RobertoMoir

shell7t8 wrote: »

My question is, if it is the first time they have ever been to the house and we just let them in straight away, can they force us to pay the outstanding amount or take our goods on that first visit or should we have insisted on them firstly doign a wpo? And, if so, are they then able to apply the £230 call out van fee too?

They can seize goods on the first visit if they wish. They can't charge a van fee and a levy fee at the same time - a levy fee is a fee to seize goods (whether they're taken away or left in place) and a van fee is a fee to return to remove previously seized goods).

That's how I remember it anyway. If you're taking up RAS's suggestion to speak to Herbie, and I strongly suggest you do, then I'd double check with her rather than rely on my memory of something I used to do a very long time ago.

955

Simply put, this firm employs crooks. One turned up at our house on two occasions chasing a council tax debt we had already paid in full. On the second occasion, he walked in unannounced as we'd left the back door open, whilst we were upstairs. Very scary stuff (I realise this might be 'legal', but should it be, really?)

And is such behaviour legal after a debt has been paid in full? I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows the law regarding this.

Needless to say, the bailiff, a Mr. Steven Tutu from Bristow & Sutor, refused to accept that we'd made payment previously and implicated that we were simply lying to him. But, when he refused to call his office to check, we realised that he was just trying to escalate the case as far as he could in order to get as much money out of us as he could. He even listed a fairly valuable vehicle on his seizure notice (which he shouldn't have been writing in the first place, on this occasion), which he would have intended to take to cover a debt of just over £200!

My personal view, which is confirmed by what's written above, is that bailiffs are unreasonable. That is to say, the majority (perhaps not all) do not posess the intellectual capability to form a reasoned argument, or even to understand one. If they did, they'd be able to go and get a proper job.

Much time was spent on the telephone that day to both Bristow & Sutor and the council tax department in question. I managed at least one reasonable result, which I thought is worth sharing with this community:

Bristow & Sutor's General Office Manager is called Pauline Muddyman. Her e-mail address is: paulinemuddyman@bristowsutor.co.uk.

She did assist in this instance (although no sign of a proper apology). If you find yourself in a position where you're unable to obtain a satisfactory response either by telephone or in writing from this company, then I would suggest sending her an e-mail in the hope that you might get your situation resolved.

HTH.

Culex

DebtFreeWannabe1985 wrote: »

Checked my bank & there has been no withdrawal from the cheque that i sent them on 10/03/2010.

If you were to stop payment on the cheque, they could sue on the cheque although, as you did get a receipt from those oafs, you should be able to prove your case.

What sort of parking ticket was it? Was it one from a council site, from in street parking or one of the "private parking ticket" scams?

If it was a genuine parking penalty or fine, take up the matter with the council or court in question and suggest that they change their enforcement agents.

Culex

DebtFreeWannabe1985 wrote: »

Ok, during my lunch break i rang Bristow & Sutor, here is what happened. I explained to them about the cheque i had sent - they said they received the cheque, but as i never signed for it, they sent it back to me a few days later, to date, i still haven't received the cheque back. Is it possibe they just threw it away so they could charge me more? They also said that a man came round to something along the lines of 'value the items at the house', i asked him when & he said 16/12/2009, since me & my mom were both at work, how could they of done that? Is that something they can do without even entering your house? Then when i asked how come it went from just over £100 to just over £600 he said they had added an extra administration charge & i will be refunded £200+, upon asking for a breakdown of the charges, he said they don't keep copies.

Your first step is to take it up, in writing, with Bristow & Sutor. Remind them of the ESA Code of practice (!!) which states, in part:

6. Members should on each and every occasion when a visit is made to a debtors property which incurs the debtor in a fee, leave a notice setting out in detail how the fee was made up and retain a record of the said issue of the notice for a minimum period of 12 months, after the date of issue.

They have plainly failed to do that.

As I doubt that complaining to the oafs' employers will achieve much and as I also doubt that a subsequent complaint to the ESA will do much better, the OFT and your local trading standards wallahs may be able to help.

Ideally, those two bruisers should have their certificates revoked.