Thank you for your response. I wish i had this info before i filled in the court paperwork. I did ask on here but i guess the right people weren't around to answer! I know the order was granted fairly (based on our arrears but not on the way we were treated by our lender although that is another story entirely). So we should have asked for the order to be lifted then? I'm not going to fight it any more now as it would just be a waste of money we simply don't have. I shall certainly be asking for a breakdown of the legal fees as i think they are excessive. We had one letter from the lender's solicitor before the hearing and they sent an agent on the day. When i asked her she thought the fee would be around £200 which sounded low but £800 seems very high. I understand they can pass the fees on and was fully expecting it but like i say these seem to be too much. I am wanting to claim back the charges levied on the account in the past and will ask for legal fees to be considered as well. I don't remember the case that was referred to but i will see if i can find out about it. Yes we probably should have asked for a postponement but if we were never going to get the possession order set aside then i guess that is immaterial now. We never had a copy of the defence before the hearing and were only shown it briefly on the day. The agent claimed she only had one copy so couldn't give us one...

Newstarter i used the same argument as you and the judge did seem to take on board what we were saying but because there was a case in the court of appeal where a possession order was not lifted the judge had to go with the precedent set by that. I really don't know what the next course of action is because we certainly don't have the money to fight it out or instruct a sh*t hot solicitor. I would love to appeal but my understanding is that it goes to a higher level and i'm sure would cost a whole load more cash that we just don't have. I don't know the case the lender's argument was based on but we didn't get to see their defence until just before we went in so obviously had no time to look up a counter argument. I must admit i (wrongly) assumed that to get the order lifted would be fairly easy based on the fact that we had cleared the arrears and maintained payments but as you so rightly say the legal profession and the real world are poles apart. When did you get your order lifted and who is your lender?

Thank you Ell-enn that is fine. I have been reading round other people's stories and tbh i can't deal with any more of it tonight so am just going to do my best to forget about it until Monday. Hopefully i will feel a bit more like battling by then! Haven't dared tell my husband about the new charges yet. Want to wait to see if there is any chance of getting some of the money back first! I assume that if we can get some of the fees refunded they would just get taken off our mortgage balance?

Following the court case where we did not get our possession order lifted the mortgage lender has now sent us a bill for the action (as expected) and it is over £800 I was expecting it to be hundreds, but more like 3 or 4 not 8! Now i want to challenge this and all the other previous fees and would appreciate a template letter in order to be able to do this. I have had a quick look on the site and not found one as yet. I will look a bit harder but in the meantime if anyone can be kind enough to provide me a template/link to one i'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

I was just wondering how you got on with your claim? We nearly had our house repossessed last year and tried to get the possession order lifted having made full monthly payments for over a year + clearing the majority of the arrears. What was left was capitalised and added to the end of the mortgage. Long story short the judge was unable to lift the possession order and now our lender wants to charge over £800 in legal fees for us taking the case back to court. I want to claim back this charge and all the others from when our account was in arrears but cannot risk it going back to court again - even if a different reason - and potentially being hit with more charges!! Can you give any advice?

Well we went to court today and the possession order was NOT lifted. We spoke to the agent for Bank of Scotland before the hearing and she was really sympathetic of our case but did say that she had to act on the lender instructions and was going to press for the order to remain in place. The judge certainly seemed to want to lift the order but unfortunately there is a case that has been to the court of appeal where an order was not set aside and he had to go with the judgement on a previous case as his guide. At one point we thought he was going to set aside our order but then he said he couldn't do it. On a positive note he made it very clear to the agent that under no circumstances were BOS to act on the order as long as we maintain payments and do not get into arrears again. So although it isn't the outcome we wanted provided we don't get behind again i think we will be ok. Not sure how to proceed with regards to bankruptcy now as this is why i wanted the threat removed. I am hoping that as the house is in negative equity the OR will not have any interest in our house. Interestingly the agent did advise us to look into the charges that have been made on our account and look to trying to get some of them back! On a personal level we felt both she and the judge were on our side. Sadly on a professional level this was a different matter but at the end of the day they were both just doing their jobs.

Thank you Ell-enn. I was hoping you might be able to be a bit more optimistic! What do i need to ask for from a solicitor in regards to free session? In theory it should be easy to answer the question but in practice it never is!!

I submitted the N244 form a while ago and we were given a date of 26th September for a court hearing requesting the possession order to be set aside. We have heard nothing from our lender until today. They have sent a letter via their solicitor (Shoosmiths) stating that if we go ahead with the court case they will defend it as clearance of the arrears and maintaining full monthly payments is not a reason in law to have the order set aside. They claim that should we default again in the future they want to be able to rely on the possession order that is in place.... The main body of the letter is as follows: 'at the time the possession order was made in April 2010, the arrears on the account were in excess of £6000. The possession order was validly made and payment of arrears and/or capitalisation of the arrears is not a legal basis to set aside the possession order. The possession order remains valid. This position is well established in law. We can assure you that our client has no intention of enforcing the possession order whilst your account remains up to date. However, in the event that you default on your mortgage payments in the future, our client is entitled to rely on its existing possession order rather than issuing new possession proceedings and incurring further expense. Of course, our client hopes this will not be necessary and that your account remains up to date. In view of the above, we do not consider that your application will be successful. In addition, our client is contractually entitled to add any costs in dealing with the application to your mortgage account. In view of the above, our client invites you to confirm as a matter of urgency, your agreement to withdraw the appplication to set aside the possession order and vacate the hearing listed on 26th September 2011. Please confirm by no later than 19 September if you intend to withdraw your application. If you still wish to proceed with the application, our client is likely to instruct us to file and serve a witness statement in response to your application and attend the hearing which will incur further costs.' What i need to know is how likely are we to win our case and get the possession order set aside? This letter feels like they are trying to threaten us and frighten us into caving in and backing down on our application. Obviously we don't want to have additional costs added to our mortgage account should they defend and win but at the same time i cannot see how they can still have the possession order if there are no longer any arrears on the account. Please can someone advise ASAP so i can decide what our next move should be. Thank you

Thank you! Has the fee gone up? I was expecting around £30!! It is worth paying though to avoid the risk of our lender trying to act on the order once i do petition for bankruptcy. I would imagine as it is in joint names they couldn't get the house anyway but i'm not taking any risks having gone through a lot to keep the house in the first place.

Thank you Ell-enn Which form do we use? Would you suggest we approach the lender first or just apply to the court?

It's been a little while since i've had the need for advice on here but i can't seem to find the answer i am looking for going through other threads! I'm sure it is around but i haven't found it yet & as every case is different i thought i'd ask myself! On a positive note we have now made our mortgage payments in full since the date of the possession order. We also have had the arrears capitalised and are paying an extra £20 a month on our mortgage to cover this. Although not ideal, i have decided it is time to declare myself bankrupt. I feel for me this is a positive thing as it draws a line under past events and really is the only way out of my current financial situation. There are no debts secured on our property and the house is in negative equity. I believe my husband will be able to buy the 'beneficial interest' in the property so we are able to keep our home. My question is, now that our arrears are cleared, is the possession order still valid, and if yes, can we get it removed and assumiong we can, how do we go about this?

Seeing an update to a previous post earlier today i thought i'd update my personal situation! Firstly our baby girl arrived on 27th July, one week before her due date. She is a very happy calm baby and has put all our personal issues into perspective. We also managed to put something towards our arrears and will this month have made 6 consecutive payments at full rate plus something towards the arrears. We are now hoping to get our arrears capitalised over the remaining mortgage term. We are not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination but things are getting better and this site proved invaluable in supporting me and giving advice during the worst moments.

Thanks! I have told him not to speak to anyone and NOT to call them back! They are clutching at straws and of course will do anything they can to get the money back from whoever they can. As long as we stand firm then there is nothing they can do. No mention has been made by them about a personal guarantee from the director (of the old company) so i am assuming this was not on the account forms/terms and conditions. They do know my husband was a director so would have expected them to go down that route if they could. Maybe they will work that out later! I have no idea how a personal guarantee works and as they have taken the company to court they may have to go back to the drawing board and take him to court as well? Seems an awful lot of effort for what was a £700~ debt!

Is your brother in law aware of your circumstances? You are going to have to tell him not to let anyone in and make sure all doors are locked, windows closed etc. Basically the same 'rules' will apply to him while he is in your house as do to you when you are there. I don't know whether anything can be done if he were to allow them in (as he is not you, not his debt or his house etc) but it would be easier just to make sure he lets no-one in. Hallowitch's advice and template letter look very good so i would certainly get that in the post asap (send recorded delivery and keep receipt in a safe place) Good luck with the council.

Sounds ok then! Like you say at least it shows you are trying to sort it out. Good luck

I think that if you are paying the council direct you need to find a bill and their bank details for online payments should be on the back. You do need to make sure it is allocated to the old debt and not the current year.

I had a similar problem with my council and Bristow & Sutor bailiffs. They wanted something like £70 a week which was impossible for us to afford. We went back to the council and although they refused to take the debt back (which i now know they can do, and probably should have done) they did contact Bristow & Sutor on our behalf and told them we could only afford to pay £10 a week and that is what they had to accept. We paid Bristow & Sutor directly because again i wasn't aware we could pay via the council. For us this wasn't a problem until our final payment was missed (pregnant scatty head and not deliberate!). We then had a hand written letter saying they were coming for our goods etc etc. Bear in mind by this point it was for just £40!! Anyway, i sent a snotty email to Bristow & Sutor and made the payment via internet banking. Thankfully the account now shows as cleared and we didn't incur any extra charges. I think we were lucky though having read some other stories! Please please do not let the bailiff into your house under any circumstances. Make sure you don't leave any windows open either. Some people suggest talking to them through an upstairs window but personally i wouldn't bother talking to them at all (on the phone or in person) and put everything in writing. Sounds like your first port of call is going back to the council and insisting they take the debt back so you can pay them directly. You might be able to have the payment taken from your housing benefit but i'm afraid i don't know enough about that and don't want to give you wrong information. You will find plenty of helpful people on here so ask away if you have any more questions. Most importantly, don't let the bailiff in, and if you can, don't let it get you down

UPDATE! Well it seems the enforcement company seem to be trying a different tack! Today my husband had a phone call at his office and on his mobile from Andrew Wilson and Co. The previous business was an online retail store and the website has been continued with new owners, a new director and all new bank accounts. The ltd company name has been changed but the original website address and 0844 telephone number is still the same. There is nothing in the new company to link my husband to and he now works for a totally different company and is nothing to do with the new one. The company my husband now works for is however owned by the director that took over the website and it is run from the same office.... So this does complicate things although i don't think in a big way as they really are separate entities. He ignored the call on his mobile but did speak to the person who called the office landline. He told them he didn't have any contact details for the director and they could just leave a message. He should have told them it was nothing to do with him but as he has a knowledge of someone chasing him he didn't think quickly enough on his feet. The voicemail he received is asking him to call them back with a proposal of how he plans to repay the debt!! He didn't give anything away but came home telling me he's going to call them back tomorrow..... Just to clarify i assume he should do nothing and wait to see if anything turns up in the post? We really don't want any bailiffs turning up at the new office as there are several companies in there and no doubt they will hassle everyone they can.

I was following this thread with interest but all seems to have gone quiet. Just wondering if you got the arrears issues sorted so you could stay in your home?

Thanks PT! I will amend as suggested

This is what i propose to send to the HCEO company today by recorded delivery: I am writing with reference to visits made by your enforcement officer Mr xxxxx The defendant in question is a Limited Company and as such is not related in any way to the address visited. I have no knowledge of the judgment that has been made against the company and am not aware of the debt you are attempting to collect upon. None of the items that have been levied upon belong to the limited company in question and as such cannot be subject to a walking possession order. In particular one item listed – garden swing – is an item that belongs to my son and is for his exclusive use. All items within the property belong to private individuals and there are no assets of the limited company there. I am pregnant and due to give birth any time in the next 4 weeks. The undue stress these visits are putting on me and my family is not healthy and as a vulnerable person identified within the national standards for enforcement agents I request that any further action is ceased. I am not sure if this is strong enough to say f*** off to them! I have never been an officer of the company so can put my name to the letter without risk of them trying to come back at me. I am happy to get a statutory declaration but have no idea of where to go to do this. I assume it could be done at any solicitor but the last time we used one was several years ago!! I also won't be able to do this until next week and would really like to get the letter in the post today.

Thanks for this Ploddertom. Although we are skint we are not entitled to a fee remission as we get child tax credit AND working tax credit! I have already looked into this for some other stuff! Will put together a letter in the morning... getting to late for me now! An N244 sounds like a solution as well but hopefully they will stop once they realise they are chasing an individual rather than a company. Just one thing, do i mention my husband's name in this or just state they are going after the an individual instead of a company? If they come back and claim they CAN chase the director (possibly as per the terms and conditions that we no longer have) then we will have to think again.

Thanks Welsh1. This is what concerns me. The HCEO does seem to have other 'tricks' as you put it! What i don't know is how to deal with the situation. I admit we should have dealt with it when the HCEO first visited but we didn't and now we need to act quickly to stop further action. There categorically is nothing left of the business at home and the items the HCEO has levied on are all personal. Any tips on what to include in a letter/email to the HCEO company would be appreciated.

Only problem is we are not at home all the time!! I am trying to spend time here getting ready before baby arrives but have to admit i find it quite scary to think they might just turn up at any time. I have heard advice to call police before so that is what i would do if they did try to take the stuff. Will PM you the company details just in case someone is lurking. Although if they are they'd work it out from the list of goods levied!!

This is how the levy was listed: 11. The goods seized are all those referred to at 2 above but in case there is any doubt, the following items have been levied on today and ARE INCLUDED IN THE SEIZURE: 1 x trailer 1 x garden swing 2 x wheel barrow 1 x bbq 1 x summer house Never seen anything like this before so i have no idea what is or isn't valid. The garden swing is my son's swing/slide combo so i do know this item at least is not valid. I am concerned that he may turn up again and just take the goods he has levied. So we do need to make some form of contact to clarify to the HCEO that this is a home and not business premises.