Thanks. I'll get onto it and get them posted tomorrow morning. Would it be of interest if I wrote down a breakdown of the charges as they appear on the letters and posted it on here? There are a fair few £22.50's scattered around on there, but the other charges are all for different amounts. So I'm thinking they can't be 'standard' charges, but none of them seem to be a similar percentage of the amounts owed either. Maybe he just plucked some figures out of his bum?

Lol, Kelcou. Sony flat screen TV sounds good written down, until you actually look at the thing and realise that it's a good ten years old, with no remote, and it doesn't even show a picture unless you plug a digi box into it first. As for the laptop, give me a tenner and it's yours I've been to the CAB and he managed to call the dogs off for three weeks while I get everything in order. He's also booked me an appointment with their debt management officer (or whatever his job title is) and another for a benefit check. Hopefully that little bit of breathing space will allow me to get everything sorted out now. I'm feeling a bit better now, thanks. I've got a debt pack, with income/expenditure forms, etc to fill out now and then I'll have a look at requesting a breakdown of the charges, etc. Could I ask another question? Would it be best to write the letters/emails to the council and bailiffs, complaining about the charges and the levy now, or should I wait until I've seen the debt officer? Thanks again.

Quick update: Ploddertom, looks like you were pretty much spot on! I've just been through the paperwork that the bailiff filled out when he was here and I've been hit with £456 worth of charges so far. No doubt in my mind now that there's no way that selling everything on the levy wouldn't cover their fees, never mind pay a portion of the debt. To answer brassnecked's earlier question, the items are written on th levy as follows... ford mondeo Black "reg no" Laptop ACER ipod docking station Gear4 Sony flat screen tv silver DVD player silver prism Thanks.

Wow! Thank you all so much!! I'm going to take notes from the advice and links and take them to the CAB with me this morning. I will update later on when I get back. I just typed out a post about why the tax credits stopped, etc. But then I pressed the Backspace button to correct a spelling mistake and the whole thing disappeared. Will have a crack at it again later Thanks again.

Thank you very much to everybody who's commented. I wasn't expecting to get this many responses so quickly. I'm not sure of the exact wording on the levy. I've got it, but my partner has gone up to bed and I don't know where she's put it. I will find out in the morning. Yes, I am fully unemployed. I claimed for ESA and DLA when I first had to stop working. I had my ATOS medical and was accepted as eligable for ESA, but because of a gap in my NI contributions (my own fault, again), I was only eligable for income based. I recieved £6.33 per week for six weeks before they stopped it. The DLA assessors decided I was eligable for lowest rate care element, as I struggle with holding pans and stuff sometimes. My partner lives with me and we do get housing and council tax benefit and The arrears are from before I had to stop working. Kids are fine, so it's not all bad Right now, I'd say the arthritis is moderate. It comes and goes though. It can be ok in the morning and agony by the afternoon, or it can be painfull all day. Sometimes I can get away with mowing the lawn before the pain kicks in and other times it's hard to get up the stairs. I'm under a rheumatologist and have been taking methotrexate tablets and a cocktail of injections and painkillers. Stress usually sets it off, so I'm expecting to be hobbling about tomorrow. Thanks.

Thanks, Wonkeydonkey. Would you suggest that I contact Jacobs and point out the info above? Or go back to the council? I've already asked the council to take back the debt and let me pay at an affordable level, but they weren't interested.

Hi there. I'm in a bit of trouble and I'm really hoping that I can get some advice as to where I stand. Firstly, I know I've been stupid, ignoring debts and letting them build up to a point where I've got no hope of settling them. I've never been very good with money. I know that's no excuse. Ok, here goes... I'm in arrears with my council tax to the tune of £4436.78 I've got five seperate accounts that break down as follows- 1) £1252.65 2) £670.20 3) £707.47 4) £526.87 5) £1279.59 A couple of months ago, I recieved a notice from the council that I had 14 days to pay the total amount, or they would start court proceedings to have the bailiffs recover the money. I've no way at all of getting that kind of money together and, stupidly, I carried on with the same old, tried and failed, ignore it and it'll go away policy. Needless to say, it didn't and a few weeks later, Jacobs bailiffs put a letter through the door, or I should say five letters stuffed into one envelope, demanding either payment in full within seven days or that I would need to let the bailiff into my house to work out a payment schedule. The letter made it very clear that there was no way they would enter into an agreement unless I Let the bailiff in and paid him £50 on the spot. I didn't have fifty pounds to pay him, so I ignored the letter. A week or so later, the bailiff turned up again and, feeling worn down and pretty bloody embarrased, I let him in. I know I shouldn't have let him in and If I could go back, after reading this forum, I'd have opened the letter box and told him to go away, But I didn't. Anyway, Once he was in the house, he was fairly polite but wouldn't budge on his insisted installments of £60 per week. I explained my personal circumstances to him, explained that I would struggle to pay that kind of money each week, but he just shrugged and said he'd have to take my stuff if I didn't accept his terms. I agreed to the payments and he asked me what valuables I own. He said he didn't like searching people's houses for stuff, so I gave him a list of things. Thing is, the house is rented fully furnished, so I don't own any furniture. My TV is rented also. So basically, he made a list that contained an ancient plasma screen TV ( one of the first ones out, no digital reciever or HD or anything like that) that's worth probably no more than £50 on a good day at an auction, an ancient dvd player that's probably worth a fiver at best, a battered old laptop that might be worth £30, a cheap ipod dock that was only £20 new and my car. The car is a 9 year old Mondeo with 165k on the clock and a load of mechanical issues. I'd be amazed if it fetched more than three or four hundred pounds at auction (webuyanycar offered me £500 for it...). I knew I wouldn't be able to afford the payments, and sure enough, a month after signing the agreement, I missed a payment. I've had five new letters this morning, all demanding payment in full within four days or they would come to take my stuff. I phoned the number on the letter, to be greeted by a fairly sour sounding woman who had no interest whatsoever. She told me, basically, that if I don't pay the smallest account (£526.87) by Saturday, they'd come at some point next week to take the stuff. I explained to her that, in total, my belongings would fetch a few hundred pounds at best, but she just said "there's a car on the list sir". Yes, I said, but it's a battered old thing that's not worth anything. Needless to say, she wasn't bothered in the slightest. Now, the reason that these arrears started to build, is that when the whole credit crunch thing hit, my wages took a huge nosedive. I was working two and three day weeks for at least a couple of years in a job that didn't pay that well for the full five days. My first child was born in 06, so money was tight enough anyway. Then in 2010, I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis in my hands, legs and back, which made it almost impossible to carry on working. I tried to claim benefits, but was awarded £6 a week, which was stopped after six weeks because my girlfriend's working tax credits took our income over the "poverty threshold" and £18 a week DLA. Anyway, even though I knew I couldn't afford to do it, I kind of budgeted to use the tax credit money to pay the bailiff. Then, two weeks ago, they stopped paying working tax credit and we lost out on £70 a week. That's basically why I couldn't cover the £60 payments to Jacobs. They don't care about that though. So, basically, I'm at the point where I have a girlfriend working 16 hours a week on just above minimum wage, a five year old and a two year old eating me out of house and home, an illness that's not showing any signs of getting better any time soon, a huge reduction in income and a bailiff threatening to come and take my car if I don't give them five hundred pounds by the end of the week. Add to that the fact that if they take the car, my girlfriend won't be able to work as she needs to be able to get to places like Blackburn, Bolton, etc during the day as part of her job, so we'll be in even more trouble money wise, and, the car itself would probably only cover the cost of the fees for taking and selling it in the first place, leaving me with the same amount of debt, but even less chance of being able to pay it! I'm going to go to the CAB tomorrow morning and see what they say, but after spending the afternoon/evening reading this forum, I thought I'd see if anybody could offer any advice here. Is there any chance at all of getting them to leave my car alone and accept a drastically reduced installment plan? Or have I left it too late to do anything about it? Feels like I'm going a bit mad at the minute:| Thanks in advance for any help offered and I'm sorry the post is a long one. Hopefully nobody falls asleep reading it...