We had a reposession order slapped on us by these pariahs when my husband became mentally ill and I had to cease work to become his full time carer which gave us substantial money problems in September 2009.Long story short, we struggled to make the both the mortgage payment and the extra £50 a month that Arsenden demanded. It seemed every month they were sending letters to say our mortgage payments were going up in line with Libor. In August 2011 we decided to try and sell the property and move into rented accomadation, first of all falling victim to National Homebuyers who demanded £500 up front before they would even speak to us. They made a ridiculous offer but it would just have cleared the mortgage so we decided to go ahead to get Arsenden off our back. A little while later National Homebuyers chopped £15000.00 off the offer, which needless to say what answer they were given. Hence we didnt get the £500 back. We did however manage to find a private buyer, whom, whilst not offering full market value made a respectable offer which we accepted on 10th November 2011. I contacted my solicitor on the 18th January 2012 as from the initial scurry of activity in November we had heard nothing since November. He informed me that he sent papers to buyers solicitor on 25th November and had not recieved them back until 15th January, they were asking me to take out a policy to safeguard against any FUTURE land contamination !!!!!!!!! Needless to say the answer was no as there had been no issues with land contamination and the guy that was buying the house is a buy to let landlord who owns several properties in my street. We went to check the property after the high winds on the 21st of January and found a eviction notice from Arsenden scheduled for the 25th January. When I contacted them to try and sort the matter out it was a case of pay up or else. We decided to go to court and try to postpone the eviction as the sale of the property was imminent. We managed to get a postponement until the 16th February to allow the sale to proceed. The judge gave us 21 days from the 25th or the next available court date. We were then more or less physically dragged into the county court office to reschedule another eviction date. The Bailiff did not have a free slot for the 17th which technically was the 21st day of the Judges order so Arsendens solicitor asked for the day before, hence not abiding by the judges decision. A freind of mine offered to pay the arrears off on his credit card so they would get off our back and the sale go through, but they didnt want to know as it was a credit card. My solicitor who was acting for us in the sale of our house was given my authorisation to deal with Arsenden and try and get them to back off. I spent one hour and 8 minutes on the phone to them at a cost of £15.78 as I only have a mobile and was told what they required my solicitor to send them to consider before they would back off. My solicitor sent the necessary paperwork at 9am on the 16th February and at 10.30am I got Lissal [EDIT - PLEASE REFRAIN FROM PERSONAL ABUSE] of Arsenden on the phone asking why they had not got the apaperwork as requested. I told her they had and it had been sent to the fax number I was given. She denied all knowledge and said I was supposed to phone them to tell them the fax had been sent at 9am. I was not told to ring or I would have told them that i could not due to having no credit and she said I was lying as she had Matthew sat across from her and it was he who had told me that. Personally I couldnt have cared less if he was sat on her knee. I know what he told me as I wrote everything down I had to tell my solicitor and read it back to Matthew as I wanted to make sure I did everything right given the reposession was less than 12 hours away. She seemed to get some sort of kick in saying : Well the eviction is going ahead at 11.30 unless you sell your house within the next 30 minutes. The actual time for eviction was 11.40 so not only were they going in a day early they wanted to go in a extra 10 minutes early. My solicitor rang me at 11.30 to say the eviction had been postponed to the following Tuesday. The house sale went through the next day on the 17th. My solicitor sent Arsenden £60193.54, as the mortgage stood at £56900.00 I think this amount was well over the top. My solicitors bill doubled to £1211.56 from £560.00 initially, the buyer got the keys and the minimal proceeds due to come to us is still with my solicitor as he had to give a undertaking to Arsenden to cover any shortfall?????????????? I contacted Arsenden and was given the old run around both by them and TLT solicitors, neither of which would tell me what the correct settlement figure was or what TLT costs had been. All they had to do is reply to my solicitor to say payment was made in full. They said this would take approximately 4 weeks and I told them it bloody well wouldnt, from that I waS AGAIN PASSED ROUND and ended up back at Customer Services where I had started. A woman called Hannah said she would pass it to a senior as urgent and it would take 24 hours. That was the 24th February and still nothing has been sent. I complained using there online complaint form on the 24th and surprise surprise no response. I have just rang my solicitor and told him my money had better hit my account by tomorrow and Arsenden can do one. I am considering a course of action involving Trading Standards, The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the FSO. wHAT DO YOU SUGGEST ?????????????

Thanks but this really is a minefield to me, I dont fully understand your advice as Im not the brightest spark in the fire. Should I wait to hear their response, I am beginning to get really worried and it is having a detrimental effect on my husbands health

I took out a credit card with what was once The Associates back in 2000 who later became Citi Bank, I owed approximately £200 on the card but due to unemployment, defaulted on my payments, my fault I know, in 2004 I was contacted by Citi Bank who informed me the debt had risen to just short of a £1000 but would offer me a resettlement figure of £533 if I paid it there and then. I had just received some money from my late father who had just passed away so decided to take advantage of their offer. Seeing as I only originally owed £200 and they were coming on to me for a grand it seemed like the better option. The guy took payment there and then over the phone and said it was case closed. I heard nothing more from them until I got a phone call nearly two weeks ago from Cabot saying I owed £750 to them from a credit card. I told them I did not have a credit card and they must be mistaken. They informed me that they had bought the debt from Citi and I owed them, I told them about the full and final settlement figure I had paid in November of 2004 and they said this was the difference. I must admit I got very angry and in the end told them to take me to court, they said "Oh no We dont want to take anyone to court " but if I could find the letter to prove the 2004 arrangement then all would be forgotten. Come on people, where are your paid up bills from 2004. She said to ring them when I found it, I havent and wont be able to find it but in the meantime have received a letter from Cabot to say they have contacted Citi with my query. The girl from Cabot had a record of my payment on 23rd November 2004 so why should I have to go and dig around. I am not in employment as I care from my disabled husband, where do I stand please ??????????

With reference to Jacobs Bailiffs, I too have had the PLEASURE of dealing with these particular individuals. Early last year my husband was made redundant and I was struggling to make ends meet. As a result I missed the last two payments on the previous years council tax bill. When the following years bill was issued the council unbeknown to me had automatically forwarded it to another bailiff company. My husband phoned up what he thought was Jacobs to pay the previous years arrears and then it was our intention to clear the outstanding arrears from the following year and maintain payments. We did not know that the second bailiff company took the entire years payment out of my husbands bank which completely wiped his account out. When we realised what had happened and contacted both the bailiff and the council their attitude was "tough, we've been paid now" and obviously left us owing the first lot of arrears with charges rocketing. I contacted Jacobs to explain what had happened and was told that charges would keep being applied and they would not entertain any offer of payment installments. Soon after this my husband was taken seriously ill and was admitted to hospital whilst I was still trying to work full time on minimum wage to pay the mortgage, visit my husband and keep a home going. My husbands health was such that without the treatment he recieved being given I was informed by his consultant that he would not be with us in four weeks. As you can imagine I was worried sick. At the time of all this going on I recieved a visit from Jacobs but I was out at work. I rang the bailiff when I got home from work to try and offer a suitable repayment plan but he clearly did'nt want to know. He said it was all or nothing and charges would be applied all the time. I borrowed the amount outstanding from a freind but paid the council directly online as I felt very intimidated by this man. I then sent him a text message to say that it had been paid and the receipt number. I was at work at this time and he phoned me to say " Why have you paid the council and not me" and I replied because it is the council I owe. He stated that there were still charghes outstanding and he "wanted" them. I said he would have to wait until the following day when I got paid to which he replied "ok I'll be there with the van in a hour. As you can imagine with everything else I had on my plate this was the last thing I needed but there was no reasoning with this man. I got very distressed in work and as a result had to be sent home. He rang 30 minutes later and said if I gave you till Monday could you pay the charges to which I had to say yes as I could see no alternative then he said he would take so much on monday and allow me a month to pay the rest. I left my son in law to pay him but when he arrived he said if I could find another 12 pounds he would wipe the rest of the debt. How could he just wipe off nearly 200 pounds. Anyway onto my next story, my daughters partner has just moved in with her and apparently left his last address owing council tax which has been placed in the hands of Jacobs and from what I can gather it is the same low life that dealt with me as I never really had the pleasure of meeting it. Anyway to cut my very very long story short my son in law has tried to offer payment given that he is unemployed and just recently out of hospital himself after having spinal surgery but this man does not want to know he has been to my daughters home this afternoon and said he will be coming with a van at 10.30 in the morning and removing goods. Gven that all the furniture in the property is my daughters but is so old she does not have receipts for anything what advice can you offer.