Smiales Diary

smiales

Morning all,

Just back from court and it sort of went well, listen to me the eternal pessimist! We arrived and were met by someone from the OR office, he was a nice chap and explained he had been sent as we hadn't dealt with him previously so it would be fair. He then chatted to us and said that he worked out there was a surplus income of £89pm and wanted OH to contribute £50pm in IPO and me nothing. We disagreed straight away and said that is not the surplus. We raised the issue with the car and explained that if we had known the expenditure for the car would be disallowed we would never have made the third party offer - may aswell of thrown the £100 in the bin. His answer was "well you could always just sell the car" We just looked at him and said that if we didn't need the car we wouldn't have been arguing about it for months! Agreed then to wait until we got into court.

Walked into court room and the judge standing was the same judge that we had a couple of years ago in our small claims dispute! At least we knew he was a fair chap.

Anyway, the OR spoke and said that he wanted an IPO of 'about' £50-£60 from OH because although we have told them that his income is reducing and supplied evidence, he doesn't necessarily believe it to be the case as it has not happened yet. The Judge looked at the papers and said that OH employers have stated it will be happening. OR man said that when it does we can apply to court for IPO to be dropped. The Judge said that this seemed a bit much for possibly an IPO for a month. OR then moved onto me and said that although he felt my reduction in income was fair he also would like an IPO in place should my income increase in the future. The Judge said that he could see that me reducing my hours could have been done on purpose but that it seemed unfair to put a 'nominal' IPO in place (the OR suggested £1 difference)

Moving on the Judge said that he was not happy to impose an IPO on this day and that he suggests the case is adjourned until OH provide letter stating definate date of income reducing and me to produce something from work regarding the amount of sick leave I've had so that he can see what has been going on with me. I also said I had evidence from my psychologist re my appointments but Judge said he would rather we submit it all to OR office. OR said that they would be concerned about adjournign as we are due for discharge end Aug and after this point OR would 'lose control' of us. Judge said that he would therefore suggesta review in July, however if we send OR evidence that he requested he would expect OR to not pursue case.

So I'm part happy because the judge refused to implement IPO today as did not think appropriate but still feel on edge because the case is not closed. Until discharge I don't think I will relax.

So all the work we put into our evidence was not even looked at, the overtime and NT was not mentioned at all and the figures that the OR had submitted to court were not the figures they discussed today. In the court docs they say we had £392 surplus, today it was £89!

Sorry for very hasty response, just wanted to get it down before forgetting!

Richard_S

:T :T :T Hey Smiales,:T :T :T

If the Judge had awarded you £1,000 compensation for being harrassed by the O.R you'd have thought there was a catch somewhere and worried about it.:D

That is a result; you maybe don't see it as such (yet) but the O.R isn't going to b()gger around over a possible £50 for a month or two, if you get AD in August.

Well done for taking it the whoe way.:beer: :beer:

If I was in your position now, I'd be just cracking open a bottle of something tatsy before going out for lunch and a day spent boozing in the sunshine.:j :j :beer: :beer:

You're a star; determined and resourceful; all the best to you both.:T :T

Rich

smiales

Richard_S wrote: »

:T :T :T Hey Smiales,:T :T :T

If the Judge had awarded you £1,000 compensation for being harrassed by the O.R you'd have thought there was a catch somewhere and worried about it.:D

You are spot on there, not a great positive thinker these days!

That is a result; you maybe don't see it as such (yet) but the O.R isn't going to b()gger around over a possible £50 for a month or two, if you get AD in August.

I hope so, I really really do hope so.
Well done for taking it the whoe way.:beer: :beer:

If I was in your position now, I'd be just cracking open a bottle of something tatsy before going out for lunch and a day spent boozing in the sunshine.:j :j :beer: :beer:
We considered it but then thought that we wouldn't count any chickens just yet!
You're a star; determined and resourceful; all the best to you both.:T :T

Rich

Ahh bless you, thanks so much for all your support. We just need to get these couple of things from our employers and get them sent off to OR asap. Fingers crossed that will put an end to it. The OR office definitely don't want us to 'escape' from them though. OR chap even said to the judge that they feel we just don't don't want to pay an IPA whether we can afford to or not which seemed a bit harsh.

blind-as-a-bat_2

Well to me that read as the judge telling the OR not to be a pedantic sod and not to bother him again unless he had some hard proof of a decent surplus

But thats just my view

And since when was £89 enough surplus to impose an IPO anyway, or are IPO rules differant, what happened to if your surplus is over £99

Anyway as long as nothing happens to increase your income then i will say you won:T :j :j :j :T :beer:

Congratulations:D

smiales

blind-as-a-bat wrote: »

Well to me that read as the judge telling the OR not to be a pedantic sod and not to bother him again unless he had some hard proof of a decent surplus

But thats just my view

And since when was £89 enough surplus to impose an IPO anyway, or are IPO rules differant, what happened to if your surplus is over £99

Anyway as long as nothing happens to increase your income then i will say you won:T :j :j :j :T :beer:

Congratulations:D

Yeah it did seem to come across quite a lot like that, wish I could have come back with a definite result but at least it was fairly positive.

Merry_Gentry

It sounds very positive to me - sit back and relax for a bit Smiales, enjoy what you acheived!!

Addicted2Chocolate

OK, I think you have had a good result which you deserve. £89 surplus is not enough to implement an IPA. I think you need to supply all the documents to the OR as requsted by the court, keeping copies for yourself and sending by recorded delivery, or delivering my hand at the OR's office and getting a receipt.
Then also consider whether you want to lodge a formal complaint to the OR in person. Then the complaints procedure would kick in and the OR in person has to consider the facts in the case and their staffs actions and decisions. If you feel you have been unfairly treated and the OR is not sticking to their own technical manual then you might have grounds for a complaint.
I think I would just supply the requested documents and continue refusing to pay an IPA if your surplus is not at least £100.
But for tonight try to relax :beer: , you did so well today. I cant I am going to say this but I agree with Blind as a Bats reading of the courts opinion of the OR!!
I really wish I knew which OR's office this was! Was the person at court an Assistant Official Receiver?

smiales

Addicted2Chocolate wrote: »

OK, I think you have had a good result which you deserve. £89 surplus is not enough to implement an IPA. I think you need to supply all the documents to the OR as requsted by the court, keeping copies for yourself and sending by recorded delivery, or delivering my hand at the OR's office and getting a receipt.

Then also consider whether you want to lodge a formal complaint to the OR in person. Then the complaints procedure would kick in and the OR in person has to consider the facts in the case and their staffs actions and decisions. If you feel you have been unfairly treated and the OR is not sticking to their own technical manual then you might have grounds for a complaint.
I think I would just supply the requested documents and continue refusing to pay an IPA if your surplus is not at least £100.
But for tonight try to relax :beer: , you did so well today. I cant I am going to say this but I agree with Blind as a Bats reading of the courts opinion of the OR!!
I really wish I knew which OR's office this was! Was the person at court an Assistant Official Receiver?

I wish we had mentioned about the £89 surplus not being enough but we were worried about saying too much as the Judge seemed on our side! Didn't really want to rock the boat so to speak.

If it does all get sorted out soon then we would definately consider making a formal complaint, but not until we are discharged, whenever that may be - not out of the woods yet. I'm so scared of doing anything that might cause a reaction that I just want to lay as low as possible.

I'm praying that we don't have to go back to court again and that once the evidence is submitted its case closed. Maybe then we can start looking to the future.

Yes the chap at court was an assistant OR if I remember correctly. I would love to give you names and details of the office we are with but I won't do it on the board! My god what if it turned out it was the same office you are in!!!

fermi

I agree. On the whole that is good news.:beer:

Funny how, when faced with justifying it in court, the surplus suddenly ended up being only £89. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

dalip

Smiales why not pm ADTC with the details of who the OR was and the office then ADTC could look into it for you. May be others have complained about the same thing/OR but not taken as far as you. Good luck for july.D