Equita and council tax

bunglebus

I called them again on 03/04 and the woman I spoke to said she'd send out the information I wanted! Mind you it hasn't arrived. I did ask why K. Fowler hadn't come back to me and she just said she works for a different department and she'd put a note against my file.
I did a bit of Googling and worked out Mrs. Fowler's first name, then found how Equita's email addresses are formatted and sent her an email directly - it didn't bounce so I assume it got there. Once again I await their response...

bunglebus

Letter received from Equita a month after I wrote to them detailing the charges against one account, but not the other, no list of payments received, nothing about them charging my credit card without authority and no explanation of the spurious £185 "Compliance Fee".
I am writing back with a Subject Access Request against everything they've avoided discussing.

Herbie21

National_Debtline wrote: »

Hi

They can initially add one £75 compliance fee per bill when they're first passed the debt. They can then only add one enforcement fee of £235 if multiple bills are being collected by the same bailiff, and that bailiff has actually attended your property. The £185 doesn’t seem to make sense.

You’re right that they can’t touch a vehicle with a blue badge displayed. The council should call debt back due to the vulnerability issue, and I think you should chase this up with them. I would suggest telephoning the council to move things along more quickly.

If you want to complain further you could also complain to the bailiff trade association CIVEA -

www.civea.co.uk

James
@natdebtline

James,

Can I just correct you on a couple of points:

Complaints cannot be made to CIVEA unless they have first been through the enforcement companies complaints procedure.

Secondly, if a vehicle is displaying a Blue Badge, it does not mean that the council should take the debt back. What normally happens, is that the enforcement company will bring the debt back in house to be administered by their respective Welfare Departments.

National_Debtline

Herbie21 wrote: »

James,

Can I just correct you on a couple of points:

Complaints cannot be made to CIVEA unless they have first been through the enforcement companies complaints procedure.

Secondly, if a vehicle is displaying a Blue Badge, it does not mean that the council should take the debt back. What normally happens, is that the enforcement company will bring the debt back in house to be administered by their respective Welfare Departments.

Thanks Herbie.

I was basing the blue badge comment on the fact that the National Standards say creditors should be prepared to take control of the case should the debtor be identified as vulnerable, and the good practice guidance for collection of council tax says the council should be prepared to call the action back from bailiffs at any time, where there is a case to do so. It makes sense that in house Welfare Departments would deal with these kinds of cases though.

I also appreciate that a blue badge doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is vulnerable, and my post wasn’t worded very well.

James
@natdebtline

Herbie21

National_Debtline wrote: »

Thanks Herbie.

I was basing the blue badge comment on the fact that the National Standards say creditors should be prepared to take control of the case should the debtor be identified as vulnerable, and the good practice guidance for collection of council tax says the council should be prepared to call the action back from bailiffs at any time, where there is a case to do so. It makes sense that in house Welfare Departments would deal with these kinds of cases though.

I also appreciate that a blue badge doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is vulnerable, and my post wasn’t worded very well.

James
@natdebtline

James, thank you for your interesting reply.

The difficulty with a vehicle displaying a Blue Badge, is that the regulations provide that the vehicle should be considered exempt as it may be used for transporting a disabled person....and many times, the disabled person may not even be the debtor.

bunglebus

OK an update - I have written to Equita three times now, the last letter included a Subject Access Request regarding any details they had on file regarding myself and my wife.
They have ignored this for over 40 days (signed for on 14/04/17).
What is my best next course of action? Looking at the ICO as they enforce the SAR but also any bailiff governing bodies, associations etc?

CIS

bunglebus wrote: »

OK an update - I have written to Equita three times now, the last letter included a Subject Access Request regarding any details they had on file regarding myself and my wife.
They have ignored this for over 40 days (signed for on 14/04/17).
What is my best next course of action? Looking at the ICO as they enforce the SAR but also any bailiff governing bodies, associations etc?

Raise a formal complaint with them and the council - most further routes are out consideration until you have raised a formal complaint first and tried to resolve the process through that route.

Once a formal complaint has been raised then you get access to the LGO, CIVEA etc

Craig

CIS

With regards to vulnerability, which was raised in your earlier posts, there is no specific definition of what it is - the enforcement agent and the local authority are expected to make that judgement and act on that judgement. The final call on 'vulnerability' is theirs to make.

Craig

bunglebus

OK, yesterday I got a letter back from Equita, apologising for the delay and including a full breakdown of all the fees and transactions against the accounts. They have returned my £10 cheque and finally explained the £185 fee which was my main bugbear.
Essentially it was the £235 enforcement fee, less £50 which had been paid against the account by me. They have already refunded the £235 as it had been charged twice so I am now happy with the explanation of how this was worked out.
It's just a shame it's taken so much effort and caused so much stress to get to this point.

fatbelly

Well done for persevering.