bailff and fees

novelli

Not sur ewhere to start really.
my son in laW scrapped a car a coupkle of yuears ago and apparently didnt SORN it (something like that), he was fined £70.00 for this, unfortunately he didnt pay the fine and was stupid enough to not respond to letters. (yes i have ranted at him too)!!
anyway a bailff has now gone to their house and said that the debt is now £345, as the bailff has added charges.
We tried going to the court with a form (n245 i think) and the payment and fee, but they said they wouldnt accept it as it had to be dealt with by the bailiff.
The bailff refuses to take £100 now and then weekly payments and says he wants the total paid by friday or he will remove goods from the house.
I have tried emailing the bailiffs to ask for the court reference numbers etc and evidence of the debt, but they have not answered 3 emails since last week. The only person i can get through to is the man who called at the house, and thats only on a mobile.
Is the bailiff allowed to charge so much, he says its £200 everytime he knocks on door!!
Shouldnt they be providing the details of the case? why cant it be taken back to the courts and paid there along with the fee?
They have 2 small children and my daughter is pannicking!! we dont even know if this was magistrates or county court as the bailiffs have provided no details and wont answer emails.
There is no way they can get that amount of money in 4 days.
Any advice appreciated to put my daughters mind at rest.
thankyou

RAS

read here http://www.bailiffadviceonline.co.uk/

HappyMJ

Tell them to go and get lost.... If they have no evidence of which court they have obtained the CCJ from then I doubt they even know what they are on about. Note: not paying a penalty charge from the DVLA is not a criminal offence if they can be bothered they will go to the county court to get a CCJ which they rarely do. It's more likely they have just sold the debt on.

Oh, and don't answer the door. The bailiff will give up eventually and return the debt to where it came from.

novelli

thanks for the response.

my daughter has just rang and told me that they have found some old paperwork and one is a notice from the court saying as they hadnt paid the £70 fine that action will be taken. So looks like a CCJ does exist unfortunately.
But they seem to remember that if was arranged for payments to be taken from his jobseekers allowance, so defnently some of the fine will have been paid??
The bailiff has said that if the money is not paid by friday he will be going to his workplace. He cannot risk this as he started a new job and is still on a probationary period, this is whats frightening. The fine was only for £70 but the bailiff wants £345, can they do this?
would it be possible to ring the court in the morning and quote the ref number asking to pay the fine in full, or will they not allow this at this late stage.
the bailiff company is marstons??
thanks

backinbusiness

Someone who knows will be along soon but I cannot imagine the baliff will be able to turn up at your son-in-law's place of work!

In fact it is probably illegal to threaten such a thing.

Help will follow, (and tell him to open his post in future!)

Good luck

bib

dancingfairy

Seee here:
http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=08_reducing_payments_or_suspending_a_bailiffs_warrant_on_a_county_court_judgment
if it's a CCJ or check out the factsheet relating to magistrates fines:
http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=13_magistrates_court_fines if it's a magistrates fine - but you do need to know which one it is.
It point also be worth paying to get the specific advice you need from bailiff advice online as well given the stakes and the amount of money involved.
Best of Luck
df

pinkladyof66

You will not be able to contact the court and get anything done at this stage, I imagine you have a distress warrant issued and this is normally issued by a Magistrates Court or County Court, the reason why the distress warrant would be issued is that there has been no previous responses to other mail that has been sent, how this could be down to the fact that he moved address I dont know, however at this stage a court will not intervene and even if you do ring the court they will just refer you onto the Bailiff to deal with, however if he has tried to make arrangements to pay this then it is unlikely that the Bailiff will let it drop at the moment as willingness to pay means acknowledging that you owe the money. With regards to the Bailiffs charges, once the distress warrant has been recieved at the Bailiffs office they will normally send out an initial letter and will be asking for the sum owed to the court and also roundabout £75 extra for the Bailiffs, if however this letter is ignored and the Bailiff has to make a visit then the sum owed to the Bailiffs goes up to over £200 plus the amount owed to the court.

If the Bailiff can ascertain that there are no goods to restraint then they can send the warrant back to the court however this takes time and can take anything up to 9 months, in the meantime it is likely that the Bailiff will keep calling. There may come a stage when the Bailiff will give up and return it to the court, in this instance then the sum owed to the court is only payable. However I cannot confirm when this is likely to be. A Bailiff only visits a certain number of times anyway there have 100's of warrants to execute so they wont be badgering you for ages as they have other work to do aswell. I cant advise what to do however it could go in your favour and the warrant could be eventually returned however offering to pay in instalments using shows the Bailiff that you are willing to pay and this can go against you as the Bailiff may think that you are going to pay and will try his upmost to get it from you otherwise he doesnt get paid.

Sorry i cant help anymore but I hope you get it sorted.

pinkladyof66

backinbusiness wrote: »

Someone who knows will be along soon but I cannot imagine the baliff will be able to turn up at your son-in-law's place of work!

In fact it is probably illegal to threaten such a thing.

Help will follow, (and tell him to open his post in future!)

Good luck

bib

And yes they do turn up at place of work if they have been tipped off !

pinkladyof66

Upon reading further yes i would imagine it is a magistrates court as the bailiffs fee for a visit is £275 plus the £70 which would make the £345 you are referring to.

Also the court does have the power to deduct from his benefits, however it could be that the order was refused by the DWP for some reason and in fact it wasnt paid. Magistrates courts fine do not normally go as a county court judgements, in some instances they can be however he would have been notified that was the case before now in writing from the court.

novelli

surely they cannot justify charging £275 fees for one visit??

and how can they insist its paid in 5 days?? my son in law has offered a lump sum of £100 then weekly payments to clear the total, but i am miffed that they can charge those fees.

he is sure that some did come out of benefits, and is going to check with jobcentre tomorrow. It only stopped coming out when he started work and benefits stopped.
thanks

pinkladyof66

Yes it is £275 standard cost for a bailiff visiting, they do have the discretion to take it instalments but they would only be looking at full payment within about 2 months. If he has paid from his benefit then yes contact the court as they can check immediately what has been paid does he know the magistrates court that holds the fine ?