Help with Scott & Co (council tax)

abi-em-mum83

Hi Im hoping someone can help my sister. She has just discovered that her ex hasnt paid the last 3 years worth of council tax and she is being chased by Scott & Co for almost £4k worth of arrears. Its not the only thing her ex didnt pay but she is managing to sort those out. Her ex has disappeared, not even paying for his child never mind anything else! She has sent in a income and expenditure and made an offer of £25 per month but they wont accept it. Because its a joint debt they need both persons income, and have said without an agreed payment plan they will arrest both accounts and will have baillifs at both addresses. Obviously this is worrying the hell out of my sister. She is having problems with her own health, and adjusting to becoming a single parent who's had to give up her very good career to take a menial part time job.
Obviously she is very scared that if they cant contact her ex and get him to agree to payments then she will have baillifs and her bank account arrested, despite offering to make her own payments.
I suggested going to the council tax office direct and offering to make payments to them rather than scott and co, who are in my opinion gbeing less then helpful, and at times downright awkward! Is she allowed to do this? She is making payments every month while she is trying to sort this. Any advice would be appreciated!

king100

Ok

Tell your sister not to let them in the house at all.

Does your sister have a car, if so make sure she parks it at least 10 mins walk from the house.

What she needs to do is contact the council and ask

How many liability orders are there?
When each liability order was granted?
How much each liability order was for?

Can she get online, if she can ask her to make token payments to the council from there. There is no law to state that she must deal with a bailiff.

Then she can write to the bailiff company asking what charges have been aplied to the LO, as they cannot charge for multiple times for a single visit for 3 different LO.

Also as she is a single parent she could be classed as vunerable.

Letter to follow and also guidelines concerning vunerable people.

Find out answers to those questions please.

abi-em-mum83

Hi thanks for your reply. There is no baliffs at the moment, Scott & Co (Sherrif officers/debt collectors) have warned that unless there is a larger repayment offered then the next step is arresting their bank accounts and sending in the balliffs.
She asked how it would work being seperated and was told they would set up 2 payment plans, and they would pay their own. But they are only willing to set this up once they know how much her ex is earning and work out how much they want per month! All they are saying is that at the moment the £40 per month she is offering is not enough (despite the fact she works in a part time job on minimum wage and having to pay a lot of other debts that he left her with, rent arrears etc).
Would it be worth her calling the council and attempt to make them an offer of repayment? Would that stop any more action from Scott & co? She is so worried that unless her scum bag ex gets in touch she will end up with the baliffs at her door, and her account frozen,unable to access the small amount of money she has to care for her kid!

sleepless_saver

I'm afraid there is no point going to the council at this stage, as they have passed the debt on to Scott and Co and will simply tell her to deal with them.

Does she live in Scotland?

abi-em-mum83

yes she does

mickey54

abi-em-mum83 wrote: »

Hi thanks for your reply. There is no baliffs at the moment, Scott & Co (Sherrif officers/debt collectors) have warned that unless there is a larger repayment offered then the next step is arresting their bank accounts and sending in the balliffs.
She asked how it would work being seperated and was told they would set up 2 payment plans, and they would pay their own. But they are only willing to set this up once they know how much her ex is earning and work out how much they want per month! All they are saying is that at the moment the £40 per month she is offering is not enough (despite the fact she works in a part time job on minimum wage and having to pay a lot of other debts that he left her with, rent arrears etc).
Would it be worth her calling the council and attempt to make them an offer of repayment? Would that stop any more action from Scott & co? She is so worried that unless her scum bag ex gets in touch she will end up with the baliffs at her door, and her account frozen,unable to access the small amount of money she has to care for her kid!

Think your sister should make a quick visit to either CAB or Advice Shop. They should be able to assist. Council tax is a joint and several liability - therefore if your sister if offering what she can, then they should accept whats on offer base on an income and expenditure being completed.

By the way - the two agencies mentioned should be able to assist with rent arrears and any other debt issues.

sleepless_saver

Agree with mickey54 about getting help from CAB. They will be able to provide Scott & Co with a statement about her income and expenditure which they will accept as proof.

Even if they did go to court, which they would have to do to be able to arrest wages etc, she will be able to provide the court with that income statement and her offer to pay. If she does, the court would be likely to go with that.

Hopefully it won't get to that stage though. Going to CAB who can negotiate on her behalf is the best thing for her to do now.

ETA and she's doing the right thing by continuing to pay them at the moment.

rachaelfleur

I've had quite a few dealings with Scott & CO, lots of threatening letters. What I did as contact the council direct and arrange a payment plan with them. Scott & Co are not the nicest people to deal ith so if you can get them out of the picture that would be best.

AndyZCS

Hello All,

As a newbie, I don't know if I should post this as a new thread but since it is a similarquestion if feel right to add it to this one.

I have received a 'demand' today from Scott & co for the princley sum of £11.69 (Yes less than twelve pounds).
Stating that I have a sheriff court judgement against me for council tax on a property for a period between 2004/5 and that i have until thursday to pay up (or else!).

I have NEVER received a request from the council for payment.

I was NOT notified that a case was to be presented to the court.

As far as I was aware South Lanark council had my home address & did from time to time contact me with regard to updating my landlord status.

And the letter merely states that I have the judgement against me with no evidential documentation to support it.


What steps can I take to redress the situation?

Is this a scam? Since I don't have any previous experience of this company I don't know if there will be further demands or if this will be a full & final settlement of the case.

Obviously I will contact everyone involved to express my concern that my 'good name' has been compromised by someones negligence to inform me.

Are there questions that I should ask or phrases that I should use to ensure that i don't make the situation worse.

Thanks for any help that you can give to shed light on my legal position here
Regards
Andy