Chased by enforcement agents

aloken

Hi all,

any advice on how to deal with enforcement agencies? Council tax been ignoring me and now they send them after me 🎁

cjdew

Have you not paid your council tax? 

p00hsticks

Welcome to the forum. 

You've posted on the site feedback board, which is not the correct place - not sure what would be though.

I think you need to give a bit more info about the issue for people to be able to help you.
In what way have 'council tax' been ignoring you ?
Have you paid any council tax or do you believe there is a reason why you shouldn't ?
What 'enforcement agency' is involved.
 
Council tax arrears are debts that can see you end up in prison, so you need to deal with it and not ignore it. 

Devongardener

You need to give a bit of background information.   Have you had notification of arrears?   Bailiffs wouldn’t be chasing you unless there was a court order so correspondence would have been sent to you,

Keep_pedalling

Try posting again in the Debt free wannabe board, but if you want help you need to provide a lot more detail. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe

MSE_JC

Hi,

We've moved this thread from Site Feedback to Debt Free Wannabe.

Thanks,

MSE JC

DisabledDan

aloken said:

Hi all,

any advice on how to deal with enforcement agencies? Council tax been ignoring me and now they send them after me 🎁

Normally I would say, "Hide your car, lock your doors (& windows because they use those even though they are not allowed to) and do not engage, but my understanding is that on Council Tax debt they can force entry.

What does not change is that the moment they arrive they start adding their charges, when they come in and start itemising you possessions that adds up to £800.

So if course the advice is to beg, borrow and borrow again to pay the whole bill off.

Parents always tell their kids to prioritise Rent/Mortgage above all which is right, but you get two shots and not paying before they want 100% of the bill.  You can make a complaint after about they supposedly ignoring you but the fact must remain the tax is unpaid.

sourcrates

Bailiffs, HCEO`s etc cannot, repeat, cannot force entry to private property.

Council tax is collected under a liability order, they can only enter through an unlocked door, or if you invite them in, which you should never do.

Forcible entry is only allowed during an eviction, accompanied by a high court writ, or to collect certain magistrates court fines that are outstanding.

Contact your council and see if they will take the debt back, that`s what will happen anyway if you ignore the bailiff.

fatbelly

Forced entry is also legal on criminal fines in the magistrates court.

Council tax arrears are not a criminal fine so they have no right of access.

The fees they can add relate to writing a first letter and making a first visit. Those are £75 and £235 respectively

Unless they can access goods they have no right to add further fees. In practice therefore, unless you encourage them they will only visit once or twice, write a few threatening letters and return the debt to the council.

The council will not discuss your account while it is with the bailiff but will do once it is returned.

DisabledDan

fatbelly said:

Forced entry is also legal on criminal fines in the magistrates court.

Council tax arrears are not a criminal fine so they have no right of access.

The fees they can add relate to writing a first letter and making a first visit. Those are £75 and £235 respectively

Unless they can access goods they have no right to add further fees. In practice therefore, unless you encourage them they will only visit once or twice, write a few threatening letters and return the debt to the council.

The council will not discuss your account while it is with the bailiff but will do once it is returned.

Thanks, that is what I was mistaking it with Court fines.

I have seen them change a £9k Judgement (with court fees and interest) to £14k, I suspect that this was done to shock me into querying the debt, of course I did not come down in the last shower and maintained my do not engage policy.  I only wish I had a video doorbell at the time.

I have a neighbour nearby who is vulnerable, they had bailiffs stick a notice of default seize goods blah blah the other day, that was for Council Tax.  I am sure it is a GDPR breach as anyone passing can see it, to be honest I thought they were exempt from CT.   

sourcrates

OP has not logged on since their initial post.