Help needed just had a visit from the Bailiff!

mummytotwo_3

Hi there, im afraid you now cannot sell the cars, as currently for all intents and purposes, the baliff now owns both those cars until they receive the payment. You will need to try and come to an arrangement with them in order for them not to remove, but i sense its full payment only.

If you think tactically, perhaps let them remove one car then let the or and baliff argue it out over the car later and at the same time come to an arrangement over the outstanding balance??

Reasonably the cars probably wouldnt cover the balance outstanding anyway (they would be lucky to walk away with £50-£100 for the £300 car after taking everything into account, as it would cost them around £90 just to enter the car into the auction, and it would be the same cost to enter the other car, and them getting roughly £500 back) , as all they will do is send them to auction and they will need to pay the fees, which will then be added to any shortfall balance which they will come back to you for, but could then be included in your br.

good luck

UnderPressure

Fatbelly is correct, the council do not need CCJ's etc, they simply apply to the magistrates court for what is called a liability order which they easily obtain by proving you have not paid, the chances are this would have been obtained in the year you fell into debt and has simply not been acted upon until now.

As has been said "legally" the bailiff has now claimed ownership of the 2 cars by including them on the notice of seizure form they posted through the door, now this means that you "should not" hide them away from the bailiff and should not sell them, the main thing is to not let them into your home and DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES sign ANYTHING the bailiff gives you.

Now generally if you were not applying for bankruptcy your aim now would be to get the bailiff to hand the file back to the council as a failed collection, the council would be a lot more open minded to making an arrangement with you then, since you are applying for bankruptcy obviously when you have your day in court this debt will be tied up in the bankruptcy order so what you do from here could be a little tricky, the main thing to do is get the bankruptcy moving as quickly as possible the sooner you get a court date the better, until then you need to find a way of keeping these vulchers at bay

Now the easiest way to do this might be to ring the council and try your damdest to get them to get the file back from the bailiff and come to an arrangement with you, I would suggest either speaking to CAB or National Debtline, I suspect the best way would be for you to make an income and expenditure chart and then going and sitting in the council offices and seeing someone preferably a manger from the council tax unit, put your case across to them that you cannot afford to pay this debt in one go and the ONLY way forward is for them to come to an arrangement with you, dont be offering an amount that is going to not be possible, it may well be a couple of months before your bankruptcy is stamped in the meantime you will need to be paying this arrangement to keep them at bay, you are going to have to really sell yourself and prove to them there is no other way of dealing with this maybe even turn on the waterworks you know with that switch most of you ladies have

Under "normal" circumstances the last thing you would do is tell a creditor beforehand you are petitioning for bankruptcy, this usually results in a huge last ditch attempt to get the money out of you whilst they can, however I am not too sure if this would apply with the council, DONT DO IT until someone more knowledgable than me comes along and says so but maybe if you told the council your were petitioning for bankruptcy they may have some procedure in place where the file can be somehow put on hold I really am not sure so as said DO NOT inform them of this unless one of the more experienced members here say it is a good idea.

Keep an eye on this thread you will get more responses throughout the day.

Chin up nearly there, hopefully by Christmas all this will be over with for you and you can start 2011 with a blank slate

HTH

hallowitch

have you received any letters at all from the council regarding the liability order

did you receive a letter from the council 14 days before the bailiffs 1st visit


you say the cars are worth approx £300 & £900 where did you get these figures from (cars sold at auction have less value when sold private)

any property a bailiff Levy's must when sold at auction cover all bailiff fees including removal costs storage fees and all auction fees and a substancial portion of the debt

if this is not the case then the levy would be unlafull and may be seen a reson to increes the baillifs fees not to pay off the debt and Formal complaints should be made to the baillif firm and the chief executive of your council

hallowitch

Detailed Assessment Judgment of Throssell v Leeds City Council where the District Judge ruled as follows:

as for your car how old is it? I.E. would the sale of it actually cover a large percentage of the bill anyway?
a vehicle should only be removed if the proceeds of sale provide that there would be a surplus available to the liability order after deductions for the bailiff fees, , removal storages and auctioneers fees.

forgot to add the redemption of goods fee should not be charged at this stage of enforcement

have you checked to see if the bailiff is certificated

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/CertificatedBailiffs/

kazziemikey

Thanks for your reply hallowitch. The figures for the cars we are only estimating what they are worth ourselves I dont think they will cover the whole amount owed once all the charges are added on.

My hubby does not remember the ladies name she has signed the form and what i can make out from the signature she is registered on the list of certified bailiffs.

The council did not send a letter before the bailiffs we received a copy of our council tax bill as I changed my name thats the only reason they sent this to us as it shows the name change I then noticed the extra amount was on there, I still have the previous council tax copy looks exactly the same only the name is in my maiden name and the extra amount owing is not on it. The bailiffs sent a letter to us on the exact same day as the council I rang them to make arrangeents for payment but they told me it was too late and we had to wait for the bailiff to attend to make payment arrangements, we tried last night to make arrangements but she would not fill the forms in on the door step and wanted to come inside to fill in forms we would not allow her in so she just stated she will seize the cars instead and thats what we had put through the door an inventory and notice of goods seizure with both the cars on.

We rang the council this morning and they state that they put this on hold with the bailiffs back in December last year which they did and we made payments as were not on benefits at the time we made payments until we had to go on benefit and we were advised to not make payment and to wait for the new bill to come as the ammount may be reduced, thats when our new bill came as a zero amount so we thought no money to pay.

Anyway they say this morning they cant put this on hold with bailiffs and we will have to make arrangements through them no matter what, I went to the CAB and they spoke to the council briefly and they told them the same but agreed to hold any further action until we can get an appt at the CAB on thursday to go through our debt with them so Im not sure what all that means as its all starting to pile up in my mind now and with 5 kids in the house hubby working part time and no money to pay anything its getting harder and harder as im sure you all understand in this forum were all in the same boat or been there.

I will mention the redemption fee as I had read that somewhere on the internet that they cant make 2 fee charges, but like I say its all gobbledeegoop at the min.

Thanks

hallowitch

did the CAB advise you to do an income expenditure they should help you draft a letter for the bailiffs ask for 3 copy's
send it by e-mail and recorded deliver letter and keep the receipt send 1 to the bailiffs and 1 to the council make sure that the CAB insist you pay by standing order don't offer more than you can afford at if only £5/10 month as i missed payment and you will be back in the same boat
if you don't receive an answer within a week phone them both

I personally don't think the bailiffs will remove your cars financially its not worth it and they would lose money really speaking they don't want your goods they want your money a levy increases there fees
the next thing you will get is a removal notice this will cost you a van fee £110/50

kazziemikey

hallowitch wrote: »

did the CAB advise you to do an income expenditure they should help you draft a letter for the bailiffs ask for 3 copy's
send it by e-mail and recorded deliver letter and keep the receipt send 1 to the bailiffs and 1 to the council make sure that the CAB insist you pay by standing order don't offer more than you can afford at if only £5/10 month as i missed payment and you will be back in the same boat
if you don't receive an answer within a week phone them both

I personally don't think the bailiffs will remove your cars financially its not worth it and they would lose money really speaking they don't want your goods they want your money a levy increases there fees
the next thing you will get is a removal notice this will cost you a van fee £110/50

We did an income/expenditure form last week for the CAB and sent it in with all the debts we owe and have been waiting for them to get back to us with an appt for the next step. Hopefully the appt on Thursday is the next step for us and we will hopefully get that sorted I did make my own copy of the form we filled in do you think I can send that to the council or maybe even take it in and speak to someone in the council ourselves, also do you think its worth taking the copy of the bill to the council that they sent with the zero amount on back in April?

hallowitch

We did an income/expenditure form last week for the CAB and sent it in with all the debts we owe

was this to go bankrupt

kazziemikey

hallowitch wrote: »

We did an income/expenditure form last week for the CAB and sent it in with all the debts we owe

was this to go bankrupt

This was the first form you fill in for the CAB to assess your debts and see which way is the best way to go with them although we do know an IVA is not something we can do and bankrupcy is the only option.

tigerfeet2006

Well if you know BR is the only option and you can get the fees together, you can ring the court and ask for the forms and ask whether you need to make an appointment or just walk in, get them filled out yourself, with help from here and go to the court and declare yourself BR.

How soon can you get the fees together?