Letter from Newlyn Debt Collection

Moneysaver666

Hi, I'm really hoping someone here can help me.

A letter came addressed to my husband the day before yesterday, and he has only just opened it this morning and it's from Newlyn debt collectors. They have dated it 1st April and given us until 15th April 15:00 to respond - that was yesterday.

It was regarding a fine for a "wrong turn" and this is honestly the first we have heard of it. I think the problem is that this prohibited turn was committed on 8th October 2014, and we moved house on the 20th October. However we notified both Waltham Forest Council and the DVLA that we were moving, and in fact the council issued a rebate for our council tax to our new address so I don't understand why they issued the fine/notice to our old address (I'm assuming that is what happened).

Anyway I phoned up Newlyn and they were so nasty and said someone is coming to seize our vehicle and they won't talk to me as the letter is addressed to my husband. This is a massive shock as we knew absolutely nothing of this before this morning. - my husband is phoning to pay it now to stop them coming for the car but I'm so disgusted. She said there's nothing I can do about it, it's too late to dispute it, and the council won't speak to me either as its been referred.
What I'd like to know is:
- Given we notified the council we were moving, it is right we now have to pay a massive £277 for something I'm assuming was around the £30 mark orgiginally?
- There is no way that Newlyn sent this letter on the 1st April - we didn't receive it until the day before their 'deadline' and there was nothing on the envelope to indicate it was urgent, to be honest I thought it was just a card statement. Can they really do this? Who could I contact to fight them on it?

Any advice appreciated

Tixy

The council will have issued the fine to the owner of the vehicle according to the DVLA database on the date they checked it.

They would not connect up those records to council tax records at all.

Did you not have a mail redirection in place at all?

In terms of the amount due - I don't know whether you would in theory still be in time to complete a statutory declaration to state that you were unaware of the fine until this time, or whether the fact that it has gone to Newlyn means it is too late for this. You could try calling national debtline for some free advice. Although obviously if your husband has already paid then it is too late to do that.

Moneysaver666

Ok so there must have been a crossover then where it got issued right before we notified them. We didn't set up mail redirection no - I'd taken time to notify all the relevant companies so thought we didn't need it - which I see now was stupid of me.

We paid it because they were really threatening and said they'd come for our car today. We never got a chance to look into this at all or sort it out. I can't believe they dated the letter the 1st and didn't send it to us for 2 weeks.