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felicity2009

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Everything posted by felicity2009

  1. Good question. I'd say from the point of view of contract law that you have no contract with the bailiff - I can go into reasons for that if you like. So his fees are nothing to do with you. The bailiff does likely have a contract with the council. He is free to ask them for any fees he thinks are due. Again - nothing to do with you. But enforcing his contract with the council by making you pay him is very dodgy legal territory. Can't be done as far as I can tell. You have no responsibility towards him. You didn't invite him round, he isn't a postman and he is not a passer-by looking for directions. So long as a large chunk of brickwork doesn't fall off your building and hit him on the head you have no legal obligation to the man. (And I'm not even sure about the brickwork). Thats the theory. Perhaps someone with more experience of this in practice would care to comment. See also this page for a statutory declaration for your girlfriend to fill out.. http://www.consumerwiki.co.uk/index.php/Bailiffs:_Useful_Template_Letters
  2. You aren't liable for any fees, so don't pay them. If the bailiff wants his wages he can ask the council. This seems to me to be the coucil's mistake in the first place. They could have always asked you nicely for the money. Specially if you'd moved within the same local authority area. You are not liable under law for mistakes made by third parties. If the bailiff feels himself put out, its the council who put him out and the council who must sooth his hurt feelings Paying off a bully only encourages them. Even when you think hes given up, I'd still ask my girlfriend to park her car elsewhere for maybe six months. If he levys her car hes in the wrong anyway and she can have it back.
  3. Please try not to worry! I was in a similar position to you only a few days ago with the same paperwork and feeling the same way - total surprise and shock. I got a ton of help off this forum and an action plan in place to bring about the ****storm from hell. But keep your doors locked and your windows fastened shut. None of it will work without that! If you have a vehicle outside, move it to another street. Give your friends a special doorbell signal (a certain number of presses etc.) and never answer it if the signal isn't right or they don't phone you from outside. Then theres bugger all they can do. That bit about 'peaceable entry' means just that. Sure they can legally come in if you aren't there - but you'll have to leave your door or window open first. Thats the bit they leave off the paperwork Do a forum search for 'doberman bites bailiff'. It will put you in the proper frame of mind. You had the right idea in not answering the door to an overly agressive knock, but its not much fun, living under seige. We tend to joke about it here - any missing cake or pizza - "the bailiff must have stole it it wasn't me" "I did make you a tea honest I did the bailiff must have took it.." I think, if you can get the psychology right, much else will follow. They are running a FUD campaign - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. You have to counter it with enhanced security, the right official questions asked, and a specific frame of mind. Good luck! And I'd send any paperwork recorded delivery. Keep your reciepts. PS: Does your doctor know about the depression and anxiety? If you can get a letter off him/her saying you are a 'vulnerable person for the purposes of civil enforcement', unless theres something specific in the council tax legislation saying otherwise, the debt is unenforceable.
  4. Just an update. The department of work and pensions have sent me a letter detailing what they have on computer. Its not much so they are digging through their paper records. What they have sent though confirms my personal recollection, such as it is I have a to-do list a mile long now. I've sent in.. 1) a freedom of information request to see about getting hold of a certain contract with certain bailiffs. Done via email. 2) a letter to the police. On paper. 3) a formal complaint to the council they will probably ignore. Via a form on their website. I doubt if anyone will join the dots on that and predict whats coming next from it. I mean part of the reason we are not even on insult trading terms with the pretend bailiffs is that I don't want them to know picking on me and my friend is likely to turn out different to picking on anyone else. But I was wondering if there was any particular order I should do the following in, considering tactical issues such as not alerting the council to the fact it is about to be put under a microscope (I'm worried they will dispose of anything incriminating) and the fact that some things will be time-barred if I leave them too late. 1) Judicial review (seems to be a good way of reopening the secret tribunal. As I was never notified of any tribunal I can't appeal - as I don't know what the hell I'm appealing against). I like that one as its possible to get enough compensation to feed my ex-flatmate so much cake she'll forget all the trauma. Plus the Judge has a wide remit and can kick serious butt and get them to change proceedures. 2) Data protection subject access request, to the council. If they have more information than they used, they screwed up, if they have nothing much I'll be wondering where they stuck all the paperwork they had me filling in for years. 3) Complaint to the information commissioners about the council a) taking automated decisions b) taking decisions on incomplete or erroneous data. 4) Local government ombudsman. I would like, if possible, to have everything land on their heads at once. The less time they have to think, the less time they have to cover things up. I'm slightly hampered in that the complete Department of Work and Pensions data will likely not be here for at least six weeks and I'm going to need that for the data protection (Information Commissioners) complaint. Any thoughts on these matters would be welcome.
  5. If he is selling the car to another of his companies, that would make sense. I wonder how much the tax office think his other company bought it for? In fact, it might be an interesting exercise for them, to collate all property seized as a 'bailiff' with all property bought by the other companies. I think it is legal for a bailiff to sell stuff privately, but all I know on the subject was learned in the last 48 hours and I don't recall where I saw that. You could make an argument for selling the stuff at a high price to your other companies to reduce their tax bill, or you could sell it low, so you have to pinch more of the victims stuff. I'm thinking low. Yet I'm also thinking this does not sound like an honorable guy. Honorable people don't threaten to have other people's dogs killed. I'm therefore thinking there might be a [problem] somewhere. Tax office look like a good bet to me. If he'll threaten to kill a dog, he is capable of anything. Interesting your guy from the council chickened out. Any chance its the dodgy handshake brigade? Police + private contractor + local council all up to No Good would suggest its a possibility. I think its audit time.
  6. Ah, that would be good. Once there is the basic structure of the letter, it would be easy to talk to an officer who knows they are supposed to talk to you about it. Its a framework. Approved by their boss [update] My friend read this entire thread, then half a pizza vanished. Either I have two crimes to report or thats a complete recovery Thank you everyone!
  7. Oh thats an excellent idea, Happy - the doc! I'm not on benefits any more - those places are really really bad if you can't stand noise, lights or ambiguous language. Plus people are nasty to you for forgetting paperwork but remembering the rules. And I'm half deaf and can't hear a damn thing in there. I can work just fine, in a darkened room away from annoying things. Hyperfocus and a systematic nature then become gifts, not disabilities. The ex-flatmate is on benefits though. I'm thinking her benefits letter, some kind of incapacity proof (I know she has a ton of stuff) and something from the doc about me. If my GP even knows - I'm not sure he does. It was just mentioned to me once by a shrink in a letter - almost in passing. I realised he was right and made the appropriate adjustments to my lifestyle. Never needed to sign on again and as theres no medical treatment for autism I never thought to mention it to my GP. >It makes no difference if the CCJ has been transferred up to the High Court for enforcement, the law doesn't provide for bailiff to increase their fees. Yeah, I thought that might be the case from reading here today. Thanks for confirming it! I'm going to have some fun with that. Not that the police will do anything, and I'll have to make a complaint - but as someone else here said - Sherforce the bailiffs appear to be a firm of solicitors. I wonder if you can report a crime in writing? Policemen are not systematic thinkers, generally. Face to face conversation with them is difficult for me. Ironically, one of the few places I feel at home is a courtroom!
  8. We assumed if she let them in and showed I'm not there, they will go away. I doubt they will now I've read this site. She is so vulnerable too. One time she paid bailiffs for a bill she didn't even owe - some utility bill as I recall. She had already paid it off. I told her the story about the dobermans biting the bailiffs on the ass - I read it here somewhere here. She likes that story! She won't let me buy her a doberman though I just read the Housing Benefit Act and lodged an official complaint with Islington Council (Ombudsman next). Even if there really had been a real overpayment, it would have been unrecoverable on at least two grounds - 1) we are both mentally vulnerable 2) if it had been an overpayment it would have been because DWP failed to tell HB I'd signed off (Part 13 regulation 100). So either there was a real unenforceable overpayment, or there a fictitious overpayment. But there wasn't one. Even I would have noticed housing benefit cheques that arrived without me signing on. Because it would have been a miracle! Incidentally, it was over a year I was unemployed looking at the email from the council. Either that or they are trying to reclaim payments I never saw. I dunno which yet. My time-sense is not like other peoples. I shall have to wait and see what the department of work and pensions digs up in their paper records. I suppose it is possible the Council sent out HB cheques to addresses I'd long since moved out of, then they just assumed I'd cashed them :/ [Edited to add] Oh thanks Ell-en! I didn't see a specific forum for bailiffs when I first arrived. Wasn't visible from what looked like the forum homepage. But I have ADD. I could have missed something.
  9. I told her that. She said 'thank you' and then she ate a cake. That means shes feeling better. I'd like to stay with her a few days, but I'm worried she will feel more at risk if I do :/
  10. The high court said it was a county court matter, and the county court said it only came to them for enforcement. It is likely the original decision was taken by a housing benefits tribunal. No-one even told me there was a hearing. Now my friend is sobbing on the kitchen floor, petrified of every footstep outside. It took years of drugs and therapy to get her functional again, and now she is back to square one.
  11. Hi! I hope someone can help! Many years ago I claimed housing benefit while I was unemployed and signing on for a year. I have ADD and Autism, and I'm not good at remembering to do things, or paperwork. From time to time I would sign on on the wrong day, this would mean I'd get signed off for a few days. I'd sign straight back on again. Several years later letters were sent from Islington council to me at a friends address where I'd stayed for a while claiming that the housing benefit was in fact an overpayment and wanting me to pay £2500. It seems that when I signed back on after temporarily forgetting to sign, Islington council had not been made aware of this. I emailed and told them about their mistake and that I'd been signing on for the whole period and even the few days I had technically not been signing on I was still entitled to the HB. We emailed back and forth a while, with them just sending a blanket insistence they overpaid, which they didn't. Then on Christmas eve my friend, who is mentally ill and very easily distressed got what we think is a posession order (long since lost). Then a 'sherrif of the high court' or a 'high sherrif of the court' (she is not sure) woke her up at 6.30am. She said I no longer lived there, but did not say where I lived. Today something arrived - High Court form 55 - saying it was a 'notice of legal control of goods' and demanding £2500 be sent to what I assume is debt collection agency. Has anyone any idea of what to do? I've tried getting a lawyer to help, but none of the legal aid ones want new clients and neither of us have enough money to hire a private one. Any help appreciated! [update] I have the paperwork in front of me now. It says.. Sherforce high court enforcement High Court Form No. 55 - Notice of seizure In the high court of justice, queens bench division, district registry High court claim number County Court claim number Send from Edmonton County Court by Certificate, date etc Notice of legal control of goods etc.. Sherforce has taken legal control of goods at [friend's place] A formal seizure of the goods at the above address has been made under a Writ of Execution etc.. It also says that enclosed wiith this notice is a 'walking possession agreement' but I don't see one. It says I must sign it to acknowledge seizure. It says their own charges ('charges of the authorised high court enforcement officer') are £800+ I've been reading round the forum since I first posted. That seems high if this was originally a CCJ, but I'm not sure if it was Then there is a letter attached saying I have to phone them to 'discuss payment of a high court judgement debt'.
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