I do believe the daughter must be classed as a lodger, if she was asked to leave where she is now, then the council would have to offer alternative acommodation, even if it is only temporary or a B&B. Then it's up to her to chase them for a suitable place. I'm not unsympathetic to her condition but she must make decisions for herself and the child rather than be apathetic about moving on.

It is very unlikely you will get legal aid to pursue this matter, be aware that the costs are likely to be in excess of £1000, if you win you MAY have those awarded to you, if you lose you may have to pay the landlords costs. Since the 'localism' act is so new the law has not yet been tested and there are many people waiting to see how the courts interpret it.

Thank you outlawla, just what I need. May I also make an appeal to posters to cut down on the emotive words like 'cow' or 'mare', the facts of the story are bad enough without us having to rely on epithets to get our feelings across. That does not bar comments like 'liar' 'thug' 'incompetence' though, and those words convey far better what we all think.

Hardly surprising since Hounslow Civic Centre is 90pc Asian occupied, from the mayor downwards. I hate to say it because I will be accused of being racist probably, but Hounslow has gone downhill a lot in the past 25 years

I'm in Spain and have trouble with ITV, is there anyone that can record this and stick it into Facebook or similar please. With all the great trailers I would hate to miss it now. Edit. I should have said youtube I think, not very technical me.

Thanks seanamarts.

Regular users here may be interested in this blog, see the 4th article down. http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ Mod. Please move if it's in the wrong place.

To put this thread to bed. I ended up going into the council offices with a signed authority from my friend to discuss the matter. Happily I spoke to someone with some common sense. The end result was that all the bailiff charges were dropped other than the basic £42.50, I was able to clear the debt there and then. My friend was gobsmacked how easy it was to foil the charges. He was expecting to pay about £500 over the top. While I was there I also got the council to agree that he came into the 'vulnerable' category, meaning that if he starts to get into trouble again they will come to me in the first instance. So from my point of view a good result and I would like to thank everyone that contributed to this thread and to all the others I have read as well. Virtual pints all round please barman.

Thanks, I will. Just an additional question while I'm here. Is it worthwhile going into their offices with my miscreant in tow? Then demanding the breakdown of charges there and then.

Thanks WD, I agree. I'm still waiting for the call back from the bailiff and I know it's not going to happen, so I will leave it now until I am in UK week after next. Then I will drag my friend around by the scruff of his neck until it's sorted out.

Woo woo merchants.

Thank you brassnecked and tomtubby for responding. I did make a complaint to the council yesterday in which I told them I considered they were fully responsible for the actions of their bailiff, this was through their own email type complaints procedure, I'm not expecting much of a response to this except the usual platitudes, still, I have to start somewhere. I am currently overseas and trying to sort this out via a skype phone and computer although I will be in UK in a couple of weeks, my phone has a local number so the bailiff should be able to call me at no extra expense, but of course he is just ignoring me and all requests to call back, I get what I can only believe are scripted replies when I speak to his company. Is there a way for me to look up the actual liability order made by the court? I'm assuming the order must be in the public domain.

I am still trying to chase down information on this matter, up till now I have not been able to verify the credentials of the particular bailiff involved nor the company he works for because of some sort of glitch at the 'Justice' site mentioned by Tomtubby. The bailiff seems to be ignoring my request for a callback to ascertain what the charges are. The local council have earned themselves a stiff complaint because, up till now, they do not respond to requests for information, even though my friend has instructed them that I speak for him. Mention of the S35 of the DPA brings a swift hanging up of the phone. What I am actually trying to do is find out exactly how much the original liability order was for, nobody seems willing to part with the information, my friend has not got a clue, he simply says it was around £1400 but because he is so disorganised there are no letters or notifications for me to see. Once I have the exact figure I will add the £42.50 bailiff charges to it and see the remainder is paid. The latest tactic I have been made aware of is that the bailiff has now said that he intends to enter the property and levy against any goods owned by the lodgers, laughable really, but my friend is very worried. Also there have been yet more charges added as a result of the conversation yesterday. The bailiff has not been allowed to enter the property at any time so I presume that he cannot have made a 'walking possession' of anything yet. Is it allowable to post the bailiff name here? or even wise? I do understand they are likely to be reading these post themselves and I don't want to compromise anything. I did not answer that last month because I did not have the information at the time. It is a CT debt, he must have been aware of the debt, I don't know if he received notice of the court hearing. I have to assume notice was sent because he is so disorganised that it would almost certainly have been consigned to a pile of 'official' looking mail. My wife and I go through that occasionally to find out what's needed to do to keep him solvent. You may have gathered that my friend is rather vulnerable, he is border line autistic in certain respects, he cannot distinguish between the important matters that must be dealt with at the time and those that can wait a while. He does have a very strong work ethic but is only now (he is 31) starting to earn what we would consider to be a proper wage. Unfortunately none of this shows in his normal life so he gets no special dispensation for not understanding the social and financial rights and wrongs.

Thanks ploddertom,I'll go back to my own thread now.

I'm doing an online search for 'Chandlers ltd' and just coming up blank, I have the name of the bailiff as well but that gives no results either, I wont name him unless I get permission first. Does anyone know if Chandlers ltd is a genuine firm of bailiffs please.

That sounds as if it might be worth reading, in this particular case I'm still waiting to find out all the facts, I do not want to act precipitately and would prefer to be armed with all the real facts about the case. I have to admit that the stories I have read here have been an eye opener, I had no idea there was so much criminality going on in the name of the law. Should I be advising my friend to make any payments direct to his council tax office rather than to this bailiff company? I'm still unclear about that.

Bear with me, I'm still finding all the info for myself yet. I'll post it as I find out.

Thank you Ploddertom, read and (not quite) digested.

Hi all, I'm helping out a friend here. He tells me that a bailiff has inflated his bill by putting a levy on a car at the property, The thing is the car belongs to someone else, I'm not sure who as yet, it may be mine because I leave a car there while I'm abroad or it may belong to one of his three lodgers, either way it cannot be his. Am I right in thinking the charge is a nonsense? Then there is an attendance fee of 250 quid as well, I'm trying to make sense of it all but he is pretty inarticulate so I have told him to write them a letter to let me deal with the matter. From what I've read here so far there seems to be a fair few ways to scupper the fees. Any advice welcome please.

Hi everyone, I'm a newbie here. I'm in the middle of drafting a complaint to the Financial ombudsman service regarding a swingeing charge from Barclays to redeem a loan. It seems Barclays did a 'swap' when the loan was first set up, without my knowledge. Could anyone direct me to any earlier posts by members in a similar situation so I can get some idea of the flavour of the ombudsman's responses to this sort of thing. There are other elements to my complaint about Barclays as well but there seems to be a dearth of information regarding 'breakage charges'. Thanks to anyone that can respond.