Scott and Co debt repayment

DisabledDan

Feyre said:

Me and my husband are in a higher amount of debt over our council tax bill and have to deal with scott and co now.

My husband is not home at the moment and unemployed . I am here on a visa so not eligible for any benefits and he at the moment isn't either. My wages is the only financial income we have and there is nothing we can do about that for the moment.

I earn £950 a month and have to pay rent, energy and phone/Internet with that at the moment.

I messaged Scott and Co and offered the maximum I can pay monthly for the moment, £15 and also told them that we will increase the payment as soon as we can.

They refused and said £15 is too low . 
I got in contact with the CAB a day earlier but had to wait for someone to get back at me and they said it can take up to 10weeks. 

Since I was afraid they would freeze my account,which would make us homeless, I offered 50 which they accepted.

1hour later CAB got back to me and I was told that the £15 are fine and I should just tell them over mail I will pay that and do it regularly and they should be fine with that.

My husband said that when repaying a debt like this they cannot refuse any offer I make. I never had any debts and I am not from Scotland so I have no idea if this is true
Google search didn't help me either.

So I messaged Scott and Co yesterday and told them what CAB told me to do. That I will pay £15 monthly and use the pay now option on their webpage.

Today I got the reply
"You had made an offer of £50.00 per month which was accepted.  Your offer of £15.00 was refused. "

Now I am lost at what to do. I paid £15 in today.  I only offered more because I was afraid of them freezing my bank account or something. 

Do they have to accept the 15 or not? Do I have to pay the 50 now? 

I'm thankful for any advice here as I am struggling financially enough as it is.

Feyre said:

Just to clarify, what I mean by losing my home

If they freeze my bank account, I will not be able to pay rent.. so I can lose my flat 

This does not sound right, usually a Council will offer you stretch the CT over 12 months instead of 10, but if they have two non payments they get miffed, even then you can negotiate something.  So it seems to me that you are not being entirely clear as passing to a third party usually happens after no engagement or a lot of missed payments.

I do not know Scottish ways but they are usually more sympathetic than UK as a rule.

What I think you might not be aware of is any discounts or grants you might be entitled to, I don't know if the Turn2Us website covers Scotland but I suspect it does.  It may show lots of community help you can get, this may be based on all sorts of things.

I don't know what you mean by "my husband is not at home" do you mean he is living elsewhere and you are separated or that he has gone abroad to visit sick relative.  If you are the only adult you can get a 25% discount on CT in England, I suspect same in Scotland.  However. is your immigration status based on him being there?  At the same time is his previous income being counted in determining your CT, although you may not be entitled to Benefits you might be entitled to a discount if your income is low enough.  Mine is so dire I am zero rated, but I used to pay 20% and then 10% then zero.

Now we must deal with this nonsense about you losing your home, nobody can be forcefully evicted without a Court Order and even then only by Court Appointed Bailiffs.

It will likely take six months to get a Court hearing and they will work really hard to accept a payment plan.  In England if you reduce arrears to below 2 months then a Section 8 claim will fail.  

They can't get blood out of a stone, as long as you pay them something and try to avoid letting them come into your home then their costs will be limited.  It is always worth assessing the enemy and what they say about enforcing your sort of debt.

https://www.scottandco.uk.com/services/debt-recovery-services/

Also check on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_n2qp6mG8

&

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0opJUj_KzyU

I suggest you follow the Link to SOA Calculator- https://www.stoozing.com/soa.php and post up your SOA so people can help you reduce your overheads.

We may be able to suggest ways to save money so you can afford to pay more essential debts