Uregnt Help Please!! Council Tax Errors and Baliffs!

trish67

Hi, I can understand how worried you are, I have been in a similar situation myself with council tax, my bill was wrong and I ended up with a bailiff at my door last week. I contacted my council tax office and they weren't very helpful at all, but then someone suggested I contact my local councillor, I did and he was a great help to me ... he got the council tax office to contact the bailiff and take the debt back from them, he also got them to wipe the bailiff's call out charge, and for me to deal with the council directly to pay my now amended bill. If you are receiving benefit they will come to an arrangement where your arrears can be deducted from your benefits directly. I too felt desperate as you do now and was worried sick, but I've managed to sort it out as you will be able to. PLEASE EMAIL YOUR LOCAL COUNCILLOR!!!!

trish67

I think you should also contact the bailiff too via email, don't ring them as once they have your number you could have the added problem of them ringing you. Email them, you will have an account number on the letter that they have given you. Tell them that your account is wrong and that you are talking to the council about it, and ask them to suspend any further action until they have heard from the council. But I can't stress enough that you need the help of your local councillor.

billytsoul

any idea how much they take?

Fran

You will need to provide Council Tax with your income details (you said "we" in your first post, so if another adult is in the house they will want to know about them too). You should contact them again and if you have no money say you want to set up payments you can afford. Ask them to call off the bailiffs and if they say no, ask what you have to do to get them called off. You have to get the Council Tax Benefit forms if you might be entitled, ask where you can pick one up if they are not coming through by post. Ask them about the postcode and whether that could be affecting anything. Read carefully other posters' advice on bailiffs. The main things you are aiming for are getting them to call off the bailiffs, getting payments arranged and getting the Council Tax Benefit form back to them.

Have a look at the direct.gov website for info. It says:

Backdating a claim

You may be able to get your Council Tax Benefit claim backdated if there's a valid reason why you weren't able to claim earlier.

Look at your local council website. Direct.gov website says you can download a form so you can do that now and take it straight in to your council tomorrow.

SuziQ

Firstly I don't really understand why you didn't follow up when your payments didn't go out of your account, but what's done is done.

Just be aware that even with your account on hold, the bailiffs may still come back and try to make you pay. I had someone from Task force come for a traffic offfence for my ex-it was nothing to do with me, he hasn't lived with me over 2 years, but as soon as I opened the door a crack he just pushed the door open , knocking me over in the process,and then told me I had invited him in! Even though it was obviously not my debt as the debtor was male, he picked up my child's computer (donated by the family fund) and started ripping out the cables and telling me to pay up or he was taking it into the van. They don't come and list goods prior any more, and if you go onto all the web sites about bailiffs, a lot of what we read on here as being 'the law' is only, in fact, best practice, and there is very little you can do if they don't follow that.Admittedly some are nastier than others-this guy from Task force is a really nasty piece of work, I am no timid mouse but he intimidated me the first time he came round. First line of complaint is their manager who don't do anything in my experience and the people you move the complaint onto (so called regulatory body) don't do anything either in my experience. Also, although I called the police, they believed the bailiff that I had invited him in-his word against mine (I think this made life easier for the police as they didn't have to do anything!), and the police seem to generally have no idea about what bailiffs are allowed/ not allowed to do.

The traffic offence in question was in dispute, but even when my ex came around and phoned the local authorioty in front of the bailiff he refused to accept what was said. It took a call from the lady in question directly to the bailiff (by then he had placed clamps on my ex's van worth £18,000 and my car-all for a debt of £150!) he then took the clmaps off and stomped off without saying anything,let alone sorry.

The same bailiff came back about that debt a couple of weeks later, even though it was going to court as my ex wasn't the driver and the driver was due to appear. That time, I just managed to close the door on the guy-he was furious and spent half an hour ranting through the letter box at me. He was again told to leave by the council. I am sure that on many of these cases, people-especially elderly - pay up and then have the devils own game trying to get a refund. I also suspect that some of those payments go into the bailiffs pocket.

I now have a very heavy chain on my door which is on constantly.

These people do not play by the rules and your first line of defence is to put a chain on your door and use it-always. Be very careful who you let in (someone I know said the bailiff came in by claiming to be there to read the meter) and don't leave any property outside they can 'distrain' (sieze) or leave any windows doors or gates open.

Can you tell, that I am very passionate on this subject? Lol. I have now dranw up a declaration and had it signed and stamped by a local solicitor, stating that all the contents of the house and items in the front and back gardens are mine and that I am the only person living here,therefore nothing can be taken to offset anyone elses debts. I got the template for that from alink on here, and the solicitor said he has witnessed loads of these lately. It only cost me £5 and may just buy me a little time if they come back again.