need help with Rossendales

plantpot87

My boyfriend applied for a garage with the council. However after 3 weeks they sent a letter back saying he couldn't have one due to owning them money. He has never had anything with the council so this puzzled us. A couple of weeks later we had a letter fromRossendales saying he owes £1200 in rent to the council and if he didn't pay straight away they would send out baliffs.

He phoned the council to find out what was going on. It turns out it was from 13 years ago now he was 17 at this time and living with his parents so I know that he definatley doesn't owe the council any money. This was also from an area the other side of the city that he has never lived in.

The council promised to look into it and get back in touch. However we heard nothing from them. We recieved a couple of letters from rossendales saying thank you for agreeing a payment plan. He hadn't aranged anything so we thought the council had found the right person. He phoned them to make sure to be told that yes a person with the same name was paying some money and had agreed to pay it.

He has just opened this months bank statement to find rossedales taking out a payment every week! He hasn't agreed to anything and hasn't given his account details out so how they have got hold of them I'm not sure.

Any idea what we can do, and if we have any hope of getting this money back (slim chance I know)

matttye

With all due respect, are you sure he's telling you everything?

For them to send a letter saying thank you for setting up a payment plan and then actually begin taking payments from him would almost certainly require some input from him, unless it's a very elaborate case of identity theft.

plantpot87

yeah i know he's telling me everything as i have been there when he has been phoning them. He hasn't agreed to anything the first he knew about it was when he opened his bank statement and that was a shock to him. That was why he phoned the council to see what the letter about a payment plan was about.

He has never had anything with the council only private rent I know because we had to go through everything when we applied for our morgage.

ValHaller

Time to stop phoning and writing letters.

• go to your bank first of all and check whether the deductions are Direct Debit, tell them that there is no Direct Debit authorised and ask for the transactions to be reversed. Follow up in writing. If it is anything other than Direct Debit, come back here.
• Ask Rossendales for their legal authority to deduct money form his bank account and demand that they stop.
• Write to the Council's Data Compliance Officer and state that their data is in error and they have rejected an application for a garage on false information that he is the debtor who owes them money and that you believe that they have wrongfully passed his bank account details to Rossendales.

My guess is that they already have his bank details for current council tax - but they are deeply in the wrong for passing this information to Rossendales without having established that he is the debtor they are after

Do not let this drop, write letters, keep copies and keep us informed.

plantpot87

ValHaller wrote: »

Time to stop phoning and writing letters.

• go to your bank first of all and check whether the deductions are Direct Debit, tell them that there is no Direct Debit authorised and ask for the transactions to be reversed. Follow up in writing. If it is anything other than Direct Debit, come back here.
• Ask Rossendales for their legal authority to deduct money form his bank account and demand that they stop.
• Write to the Council's Data Compliance Officer and state that their data is in error and they have rejected an application for a garage on false information that he is the debtor who owes them money and that you believe that they have wrongfully passed his bank account details to Rossendales.

My guess is that they already have his bank details for current council tax - but they are deeply in the wrong for passing this information to Rossendales without having established that he is the debtor they are after

Do not let this drop, write letters, keep copies and keep us informed.

Thank you so much ValHaller . He has just phoned the bank who have put a block and are claiming the money back.

Yep they do have his details from the council tax.

Next step will be get him to send the letters to rossendales and council.

CIS

My guess is that they already have his bank details for current council tax - but they are deeply in the wrong for passing this information to Rossendales without having established that he is the debtor they are after

If the bailiff has been appointed by the council to collect council tax then they can take on any of the function of the council in collecting council tax arrears, including setting up payment arrangements.

When a council holds direct debit details they will often set up payment arrangements and write to the debtor to advise of this and give them the chance to pay by this method. The bailiff can do this on behalf of the council if authorised by them to do so.

If he was under 18 years of age then he cannot be liable for a council tax charge - if nothing else he needs to contact the council with proof of his date of birth.

plantpot87

CIS wrote: »

If the bailiff has been appointed by the council to collect council tax then they can take on any of the function of the council in collecting council tax arrears, including setting up payment arrangements.

When a council holds direct debit details they will often set up payment arrangements and write to the debtor to advise of this and give them the chance to pay by this method. The bailiff can do this on behalf of the council if authorised by them to do so.

If he was under 18 years of age then he cannot be liable for a council tax charge - if nothing else he needs to contact the council with proof of his date of birth.

sorry I should have put that it's not council tax they are chasing him for its for rent, which he has never a tennacy with the council.

CIS

sorry I should have put that it's not council tax they are chasing him for its for rent, which he has never a tennacy with the council.

Sorry misread the original post.

I utilise our housing department records for tracing procedures every day and the one thing they are very good at is holding dates of birth and NI numbers, most housing departments will hold the same details so its worth asking them to compare his details with those they originally held.

plantpot87

just an update thank you everyone for your advice. He sent off 2 letters one to the council and one to rossendales. He then followed these up with a phone call as we heard nothing back.

He said council did nothing but keep appolgising over and over to him on the phone and assure him that no more would be taken (but seeing as they said this before we will see) but the main woman is on holiday so he's got to wait till she gets back and have a word with her.

Rossendales said that no more would be taken out and would be stopped and the account removed. But as for getting your money back well tough as the person had the same name as you.

thanks for all your help as I know we dont have much hope of getting the money back but we will try, just the thought that he's not paying the money for someones else rent is a big weight off our mind. We can get back to paying for new our kitchen now

fatbelly

plantpot87 wrote: »

thanks for all your help as I know we dont have much hope of getting the money back but we will try, just the thought that he's not paying the money for someones else rent is a big weight off our mind. We can get back to paying for new our kitchen now

You should 100% get your money back.

plantpot87

fatbelly wrote: »

You should 100% get your money back.

i know this might seem like a really stupid question but who do we claim the money back off of rossendales or the council?