Bailiff hastle at work

andygoss

Hi all I'm After some advice,

I had a bailiff come into my place of work today, being a shop I had to speak to him embarassingly infront of customers and colleagues.

The Bailiff said that he had a warrant for £160 (he showed me a piece of paper that looked more like a contact sheet however unsure what a warrant would look like).

The original debt was council tax for which when it went orginally to this debt collection company after court was £200, however to date I have not received a breakdown of this. I originally entered an agreement to pay 2 £100 payments and paid the first, due to other debts/issues I defaulted the 2nd payment, then got bailiff letters a few days after. the company Equita from this point would not accept calls from me in their office, their automated system kept refering me to the Bailiff number and when I did manage to speak to someone in the office they said I could now only deal with him, despite wishing to pay in full. After speaking to the bailiff several times in an effort to allowing me to call his office to make a card payment I gave up, apparnatly he saw nothing wrong with his request at my having to give a guy on a random mobile number my debit card details....

What I then did was the same day I went on the Wellingboro Council tax payment website and paid £101 on my card with the automated system (the £1 was the card admin fee), to pay off the full debt. I called the bailiff and told him that I had done it, he then said I still owes £160 as their collection visits and other charges were owed, this was the first I had been told about these. After an argument he said he would refer back to his office, I received a letter saying that the debt was no longer with that bailiff.

After that nothing else, until yesterdays visit. During the visit I was issued another removal of goods letter saying I have 24 hours, however the letter does not even have an amount owed on it.

They only have my work address on file as not in a fixed address at mo, so the removal notice is pointless, also this was put only as a care of mail address not a visit address. My concern is my car is parked at work altho on a secure carpark with about 100 more.

I have received no breakdown of the fees and charges and from looking at other sites feel I am being played.

The bailiff "advised" me to pay the 160 in full now and chase return of the money after if I felt incorrect, in his words he was being lenient yesterday as should of added to the bill for his visit, he suggested that if I leave it a week the charges will double, due to the work they have to go for all linked addresses that they have for me, surely as they have a C/O address they don't and never did need to do this.

I'm stuck as feel this is a big con that I'm stuck in and cant get out of..

Thanks for reading

kittiej

Hi there is a site bailiffadviceonline and they have info on there.

They also do a phone service but it's 60p per minute or you can ask a question by email for a tenner. Other than that I would suggest either CAB or do you have a helpline at work that gives free advice?

Does your local council have a centre which deals with council issues? I would be complaining about the bailiff tbh and if you can get another postal address.

HTH a bit

EssexHebridean

I'd also be inclined to leave your car somewhere else at the moment until such time as this is sorted.

RAS

This is hallowitchs advice to another poster. You need to send for this breakdown of fees urgently because they ones they are charging appear to be illegal.

With respect to the car, do you have a family member you can completely trust? You need to sell the car to that person for £1. Get a receipt. That secures your car if the bailiff finds it. it is certainily what Herbie21 of the bailiffadvice line would recommend if you rang her.

hallowitch wrote: »

Name
Address
Bailiff Ref: Account No: 123456
Council Ref No: 435672
Date
Dear Sir,
With reference to the above account please provide me with a breakdown of all fees charged and payments made for the above account
This includes:
a - the time & date of any Bailiff action that incurred a Fee.
b - The reason for the fee.
c - The name(s) of the Bailiff(s) that attended on each occasion a Fee was charged.
d - The name(s) of the Court(s) the Bailiff(s) was/were certificated at.
e - The date of the Certification.
This is not a Subject access request under the Data Protection Act S7 1998 so does not incur a fee of £10.
The National Standards for Enforcement Agents state that if a written request is made an itemised account will be provided.
Please provide the information requested within 14 days of this E-mail /recorded delivery letter
A copy of this e-mail/letter has also been sent to xxx council
Yours faithfully


To the council

I have today sent for a breakdown of my account to your contractors Equita to a copy of this letter is attached/enclosed to be placed on file
Ripped off customer"

vax2002

I would ask them to leave your place of work and if they refuse call security or shop watch and ask them to remove them as a trespasser.

dancingfairy

O.k Are you sure this is for council tax and not for business rate tax or anything?
As far as I can make out you owe no council tax for the period in question (based on you said you owed 200 pounds which included the liability order costs which you have now paid) so you should therefore owe a mximum of about 42.50 ish (which is the charge for 2 visits where no levy has been made). This is assuming they have not levied on a car you own or ever been into your house.
National Debtline has a good factsheet on their website on council tax and bailiffs.
The one thing I am not sure about is the bailiffs contacting you at work. I believe that the OFT guidelines say that it is unfair to contact a debtor at work but I am unsure as to whether this applies to council tax debt as well - you should check this and make a complaint if necessary (wait until the outcome of what fees they are charging comes back as you may need to complain about them as well).
df

andygoss

I am sending the pre set letter today, I confronted the bailiff on the phone over charges who said I would have to go to the office, he was trying to imply that the £42 for first 2 visits applied to each address they visited among other reasons.

Will let you know what they come back with.

Was just council tax, but like I put now they seem to be stacking fees just on fees... So frustrating..

andygoss

Okay, good thing was I eventually got a reply from Equita: Will type wht they put:

Having looked at the case I nete that no times of visits have been logged, however the dates recorded for visits are the 17.01.11, 07.02.11 and 11.8.11. Whilst on each report on each occassion indicates that no contact was made, you would have been left a letter.
Our Ref: 13884882
Liability order dated 05.11.09
Debt: £155.85
Statutory visit Fees: £42.50
Levy Fees: £27.00
Enforcement Fees: £160.00
Card Charge: £2.00
Total £387.35
Payments received
31.05.11 £126.00
18.08.11 £101.00
Total Received 227.00
Bal £160.35

Then lists Mr Riseley, Mr Foster and Mr Deakin as the enforcement officers and their cert dates.

Now in my eyes I see I have now paid them £227.00 for a debt of £155.85 and in fact they owe me money, however due to their charges especially this £160 I am still in debt.

On the Same day I also received another formal notice that they will be attending to remove goods, upon phoning them on a Sat morning and actually getting the automated system to conect me with an opporator he said that any dispute of charges can only be done via post, however when I asked about the letter he did agree that this was just an intimidation letter, obviously a newb..

I have today also received a letter stating that it is a Final Notification, this states that they are in possesion of a Magistrates Liability Order then this paragraph:

To Date you have failed to settle the outstanding amount. As we have been unable to LEVY DISTRESS upon your goods and effects the matter may now be referred back to our client who have the power to apply to the court for a WARRANT OF COMMITMENT TO PRISON against you.


This feels that they are taking it too far. I'm finding it hard as they don't deal via the phone and seem to get stuck when doing the letters.

Surely the 2nd letter confirms that the levy fee of £27 is not justified and the fact they cant confirm visits means that the £42.50 Stat visit fees are non applicable, however the £160 im at a loss at. Do I just go to the council for it, or is there a 2nd letter anywhere I could use.

The threat of prison seems a bit strong when they are charging me merely for un warranted charges...

Many thanks
Andy

dancingfairy

I agree with you - how can they charge a levy fee if no levy was made? clearly wrong. Also the enforcement fee is dodgy as well.
Ignore the threat about prison. Technically prison is available but you would have to be seriously stupid/deliberately not pay for the council (note council not bailiffs) to even consider going down this route.
I'd maybe get some advice from National Debtline and write a formal complaint to the bailiffs and also to the council complaining about the conduct of their agents.
You don't owe any money to them - in fact they appear to owe you 27 pounds.
df

RAS

andygoss wrote: »

Having looked at the case I nete that no times of visits have been logged, however the dates recorded for visits are the 17.01.11, 07.02.11 and 11.8.11.

Whilst on each report on each occassion indicates that no contact was made, you would have been left a letter.


Our Ref: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Liability order dated 05.11.09
Debt: £155.85 - legitimate
Statutory visit Fees: £42.50 - legitimate if no levy made
Levy Fees: £27.00 - not permitted unless a levy was made and based on the comment in red this is not the case
Enforcement Fees: £160.00 - have no legal basis.
Card Charge: £2.00 - they can do this
Total £387.35
Payments received
31.05.11 £126.00
18.08.11 £101.00
Total Received 227.00
Bal £160.35

Then lists Mr Riseley, Mr Foster and Mr Deakin as the enforcement officers and their cert dates.

Now in my eyes I see I have now paid them £227.00 for a debt of £155.85 and in fact they owe me money, however due to their charges especially this £160 I am still in debt.

andygoss wrote: »

To Date you have failed to settle the outstanding amount. As we have been unable to LEVY DISTRESS upon your goods and effects the matter may now be referred back to our client who have the power to apply to the court for a WARRANT OF COMMITMENT TO PRISON against you.

Ignore this - only the Council can take action for committal and then only if the debtor refuses to make any payments.

I am sure hallowitch has a standard letter, but I can advise that a substantial number of posters have challenged Equita'a fees and been reimbursed for illegal charges.

I reckon they owe you £26.65.

You need to copy into the letter disputing the charges, your local councillor, the revenue protection Officer at the Council (may be an employee of the company owning equita however) and your MP.

RAS

Andy - remove the reference number in your post if it is real.