My partner has received a NoE from B&S re council tax from an address she was living at when she had to flee DV.

Now the amount owed to the council states £131.46

Compliance stage fee £75.00

But then the total is showing as £441.46

Now this is obvious to me that they have also added the enforcement fee (£235.00) to the total.

My question is, does such a blatant error make the NoE invalid?

How was this notice posted? What date have they given to get in touch by?

Via post.

Don't know when it was received but they demanded first payment by 20/1.

I know it's a bit late, my partner has hidden a lot of debt from me which is just coming to light now.

As I say though, the area of concern is the amounts and wether the fact they've added the enforcement fee as well as the compliance fee has invalidated the NoE.

It would appear that this is not the first letter and as nothing was heard by the date given then a visit has probably been made which incurs the £235 charge. I imagine everything went to the old address - did she notify anyone about having had to move?

The NoE is the first notice they are supposed to send out, hence charging. The compliance fee. These are the only letters received and the NoE is dated 13/1/17.

That's why I asked if notification of moving was given as this could have gone to old address.

The NoE was to new address.

Noe are hand delivered, 235 stands

No, the actual notice of enforcement is posted or hand delivered, but should not include the 235.

The now is supposed to advise of the imminent enforcement unless its paid in full.

The NOE should ONLY have the debt plus £75.

Is the OP sure this is a NOE or a notice that an enforcement visit has taken place?

Could the OP possibly post up a redacted version of the paperwork received?

In my submission to the Ministry of Justice under the One Year Review of the regulations, one of my suggestions was for an additional statutory notice. Presently, if a debtor is not at home when a visit is made (which incurs a £235 fee), some of the notices left bear an uncanny resemblance title wise to the official Notice of Enforcement. I would suspect that such a notice has been left in this particular case.

Notice of enforcements are hand delivered.

This is the point that the 235 can be added.

The council would of written several times to the last known address... This is all they are legally obliged to do.

Into trace

Your found

More letters are sent

Then legal action

More letters are sent

Then a compliance

Then a NOE hand delivered.

How come everyone says they never received letters.

Notice of enforcements are hand delivered.

This is the point that the 235 can be added.

 

The council would of written several times to the last known address... This is all they are legally obliged to do.

Into trace

Your found

More letters are sent

Then legal action

More letters are sent

Then a compliance

Then a NOE hand delivered.

 

How come everyone says they never received letters.

No, a notice of enforcement is posted out. The notice of enforcement incurs the compliance stage fee.

A visit notice, which would incur the stage fee, would be hand delivered.

Grumpy to say the least is correct,

But some Enforcement companies add the £235 as soon as it is handed to the EA,

before they make a visit.

As soon as instructions are received from the creditor (usually the local authority or HMCTS),

the Compliance fee of £75 kicks in and this fee will show on the Notice of Enforcement.

If full payment (including the compliance fee) is not received......

.or a payment plan agreed by the date given on the Notice if Enforcement,

then the case can be passed to an Enforcement Agent to make a personal visit to the debtors property for the purpose of 'taking control of goods'.

For the avoidance of doubt.....the £235 becomes payable at the time of the personal visit and not before.

Hi BA of course you are correct,

But from my own experience, the fee has been added before the visit takes place,

as soon as it is handed to the EA,I have had letters that state the fee has been added.

If you speak to the Enforcement company, they will refer you to the EA. ( this is after there has been no payment or arrangement made)

May be this is why the Enforcement add the £235 on when stating it is in the hands of the EA.

Leakie

Pretty much that.

My partner has received 2 letters from Bristol and Sutor for 3 Liability Orders from Tamworth Borough Council.

Amount owed is approximately £3000 with the compliance stage fees.

The orders were dated 19th June 2007, 26th June 2007 and August 2007. All for the same address.

I've written to the council on her behalf but got the usual fob off so have replied asking when they tried to get the debt repaid in the past.

We both work, but both on very low incomes and just about keeping our head above water.

We have 1 car which we share as I do the morning school runs and she does the after school collections

then I have a motorbike for getting to work on (this is on HP).

Is there anything I can do?

What was the query that you raised with the council?

Given the dates of the Liability Orders,

I would suggest that as a first step,

you approach the council to ask what period of time each Liability Order relates to.

If your query concerns whether or not a local authority can enforce unpaid Liability Orders after a period of 10 years,

then yes they can and many more councils who are short of money are doing the exact same.

However, questions do need to be raised as to why they had not sought to recover these debts sooner.

For instances,

are these Liability Orders in relation to the address where you are currently living or do they relate to a previous property.

If you had moved, did you provide a forwarding address?

BA the partner is liable, they fled domestic violence and these LO's were probably obtained after they left the premises liable for the Ctax so probs joint liability with an ex who might be

untraceable.

Dayoshir is that exactlywhat has happened?

Right, there seems to be some confusion here as 2 of my posts have been combined.

Please only take note of the post from September as the February thread has already been resolved (council immediately took the case back from the bailiffs and allowed us to pay a small amount each month without any bother whatsoever).

The 3 liability orders that they are chasing now are from 10 years ago and relate to an address she lived at with her soon to be ex husband.

She only fled the domestic violence in 2015 when the police and social services realised what was actually going on.

She says she wasnt allowed to pay these monthly amounts back at the time of the unpaid CT as her husband was financially abusive and physically abusive. She wasnt allowed money, but if she was and paid a debt she got a beating for it.

But we are currently exploring bankruptcy, as there are a large number of these debts that her husband and his kids took out in her name and we think its the only way where we can clear it all easily at this point in time.

BTW the car was bought by my mother (on her credit card) so i can lay claim to that and her motorbike which she uses for work was also bought with my mothers credit card so i can claim that as mine as well.

I just think its really crappy that a council can suddenly send the bailiffs round after 10 years with no real warning or request for payment prior to this. Especially with the time lapsed. Why cant LO's be statue barred like other debts?

Thank you for providing more background information. Without knowing your partners financial circumstances, it is difficult to know whether bankruptcy is a good idea.....in many cases it certainly is.

Again, depending on the level of her debts, it may well be worth looking at a DRO (Debt Relief Order).

If she is serious about bankruptcy, I would suggest that she contact the council to ask whether they would agree to ask B&S to place the account on hold to allow her a period of time to obtain the necessary advice regarding bankruptcy.

PS: The ownership of the vehicles is looking clearer making it very difficult for the enforcement company to seize either of them.

Cheers for that.

The debts at the moment are round £9k and thats the ones that have come to light most recently.

Every time we think we've sorted one another one pops out the woodwork so going to have to take this one on the chin!

I would still suggest that you seek some sort of agreement with the council to allow your partner a 'breathing space' to explore the various options available (Debt Relief Order v B/R)

have requested bankruptcy as when we went through all her paperwork it turned out there was a staggering £42k worth of debt in various unsecured forms!

These included benefit overpayments from when she was in her past relationship to credit card debts and anything inbetween.

Just glad its starting to get sorted now and hopefully very quickly!

Benefit overpayments aren't always able to be included in a bankruptcy so you'd need to check.