I also have this same situation - my charges are £54.00 each month which is being added to the mortgage and therefore also having interest charged on it. So far I have had the suspended order since June 2007 and it will take until June 2010 for my arrears to be below the 1 month target where no charge is paid so in total another £1944 added to the mortgage. Does anyone know if this is legal to do especially as the judge only ordered an additional £50.00 per month onto the mortgage payment??

Hi Chris, the 2nd letter sent to the baliffs is as follows Re: Your Reference ******** Client reference ************* Please understand that I am fully aware of my rights and you will not gain peaceful entry to my home under any circumstances to levy goods. I know the fees allowed under statute and when these fees can be applied. Dear Sir/Madam, Further to my letter of 20th November 2008 (a copy of which is enclosed) to which I have had no response, I have received a demand for you that appears to add nearly £272.50 to my original outstanding council tax bill. This is considerably more than you are entitled to charge. Demanding fees for work that you have not done - is an offence under Section 2(1)(b)(i) and Section 4(1)©(i) of the Fraud Act 2006, and grounds for a complaint to the County Court under the Distress for Rent Rules 1988 or Form 4 complaint. This account is in dispute, the amount you are demanding is incorrect as I have been making payments direct to ********* Council since September 2008 and I expect NO FURTHER ACTION to be taken. I will pay any fees owing to you, but will only do this when I have received and had time to have checked a full breakdown of charges, including what the fee consists of (showing appropriate receipts if applicable), when they visited, the vehicle used, the name of the certified bailiff and the court at which he was certified, otherwise I am entitled to refuse to pay the fees. If I do not receive the information that I have asked for by return of post, I will make a complaint to ************ Council and a regulation 46 complaint to the Magistrates Court which issued the liability order. I am sending a copy of this letter to *********** Council Yours faithfully,

Just an update, nothing received yet in response to my letters to the council or to the baliffs, however I did find whilst routing in the house the original court summons stating the amount outstanding and the summons costs - I now calculate that they have charged me £292.50 extra which is even worse!!

Thanks Chris - yes I do have copies, all of the payments have been done through my online banking, I set them up for regular payments which means you can filter it to show the payments for a specific payee showing the amount and the date that the payment was sent. I also specified on the account reference number the year that the payment relates to. Has anyone ever had the charges reduced by the baliffs?? I am sending them another letter today by recorded delivery, enclosing a copy of the original letter and asking them for a breakdown of their charges and stating that if there are any unlawful charges I will be taking further action.

Hi, yet another addition to this post. I got home from work yesterday to find another visit letter from the baliffs, now stating that they attended with a view to removals and in order for no further action to be taken I need to pay them XXXXXX - an increase of £272.50 on top of my original council tax bill. No mention at all has been made regarding the amounts that I have already paid over to the Council by bank transfer and no mention of a reply to my letter sent over a week ago. Up to the last visit 11th November to which I responded with the letter, the fees charged were £42.00, so just like that another £230.50 has been added on. My boyfriend was actually at my house all day yesterday putting some lights in the garage and he said that no-one came near the house at all so it looks like they just added some more charges on and pushed the letter through the door. Surely this is not legal, is it a right for a baliff to just add whatever they feel like on top of a bill. Also isn't it amazing that the signature on the letter is illegible! Does anyone have any idea of what the extra charges could be and am I right in thinking that only the 1st and 2nd fee is legal & chargeable?? Can anyone advise on the next plan of action?? I have sent a letter to the council but as yet no response has been received but no way am I going to pay a baliff money for nothing, this is how I got into trouble with council tax as first a baliff gets involved, adds extortionate fees on top and after having to lend the money to pay these getting in trouble with the next year's bill and it starts all over again. The last point on there letter is ' do not ignore this letter as we will keep on calling ' Sorry to rant on but I am so annoyed by these people - they know that people are struggling with money, else a person would not be in a position where baliffs are involved - why can't they be reasonable and then people would be reasonable back!!

Hi, I also had this problem with Npower, but my new company Ebico said that it is normal for them to do this. Ebico just sent in the applications again a couple of weeks later and Npower approved it - tell your new supplier to apply again

I know what you mean, in some ways I do actually prefer a prepayment meter as I like the fact that I don't get a bill and can budget better. However, I remember last year the problems my local shop had with their top up machine and the times I had to go to bed freezing with no gas. It made me start thinking a credit meter on direct debit maybe a better option, I just have to make sure that the DD covers the payments. Plus if it is so easy to change from prepay to credit and vice versa then I can always go back again - they have shown that it can be done just like that!!

Hi, I also have an ebico gas meter and have only just changed over from Npower, who had messed up the credit/debt on the meter that much that Ebico had to send a big credit onto the card to sort it, so I thought it was all to do with that. I have spoken to a lady at Southern Electric today who says that any debt built up on the meter due to it not working correctly is not payable by the customer as it is Ebico's mistake and as long as you top up by the 1st December by at least £1.00 the mistake will be rectified and you will start prepaying again, I replied with does that mean that if I hammer my gas useage up to the 1 December I will not get charged for it, she laughed and said basically yes - My advice is to take a meter reading on the 1st December to make sure that if a bill does arrive you can point out where the mistake was. I then asked if I decided to have a credit meter instead how do I go about it and she said that I should ring them on the 1st December with a meter reading and that I would start being on a credit meter from the 1st December with either a bill or a monthly direct debit plan. One thing I found incredible was that when I was with Npower, they told me that it would cost me £100 to change my meter over from a prepayment to a credit meter but astonishingly it looks like it can be done just like that!!!!

Thanks Scatz, I will amend and take out the fraud and locksmith parts and send it today, hopefully I will get a response

Sorry the table did not paste properly but you can get the gist of it

Thank you scatz - below is the letter that I am sending to the baliffs, from your opinion do I need to add anything to it? Dear Sir or Madam. Re: Your Reference ******** Client Reference: ******** Council appears to have instructed you to collect unpaid council tax. This notice directs that you are not being given entry to my home or to levy goods contained within and your entitlement to charge a Walking Possessions fee stands revoked. Please be advised that if your fees now or in the future are found to contradict Regulation 14(2) or Regulation 45(2) of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, you may be liable for criminal prosecution under the Fraud Act 2006. Without corresponding with you further I will also automatically file a Form 4 at court. Since September 2008 I have been making payments direct to the Council through their online payments system and therefore the balance shown on your letters is incorrect. Due to my circumstances I am unable to pay the debt in whole and will make payment of £**** each month direct to the council as I have been doing since September 2008. I have also asked that the council take back this account. These are the only payments I can afford and allows me to pay future council tax liabilities without falling into arrears. Please be advised it is not a "criminal offence" for me to deny a bailiff entry to my property and it is an offence to threaten me with breaking and entering with "locksmiths". I am willing to pay the fees due of £24.50 first visit and £18.00 second visit totalling £42.50 as these are lawful. In response to your threat of adding £95.00 attendance fee to my account may I refer you to the table below from the National Debtline. A charge for attendance can only be charged after levy has been made – in this case no levy has been made and therefore no charge can be added. EVENT COUNCIL TAX CHARGES POLL TAX CHARGES For a visit to your home where no entry is made and a list of goods is not made (i.e. a levy is not made) £24.50 for a first visit £18.00 for a second visit No further charges for further visits £15 for a first visit £12.50 for a second visit No further charges for further visits For making a levy (i.e. where the bailiffs gain peaceful entry and make a list of goods) £24.50 for the first £100 or less 4% for the next £400 2.5% for the next £1,500 £15 or 15% For entering into a 'walking possession' agreement Flat fee of £12 10p per day For a 'close possession' agreement (e.g. bailiff stays with the goods) £15 per day 10p per day For one attendance with a vehicle with a view to recover goods after the levy has been made under this heading Reasonable costs incurred (N.B. only one charge can be made.) For the removal and storage of goods Reasonable costs incurred For various items relating to sale or proposed sale of the goods (e.g. auctioneers' fees etc) Various fees and expenses Yours Faithfully

can anyone tell me if the £95.00 attendance fee is a lawful charge please? I am just composing another letter to the baliff and wanted to make sure of my facts. I know that first and second visits are £24.50 and £16.00 but I thought that was all they could charge without a levy?

I did get one from the council when I got the letter saying it was going to court, which I filled in and sent through to them offering that I paid another 10.00 per month on top of my monthly payment to bring the account up to date (which would have taken 13 months), but I never received any reply to that. Come to think of it I didn't even receive a letter from the Court to say that a liability order had been granted

Hi Scatz thanks for your reply, yes I do live on my own and yes I do claim the 25% discount but with everything else it is still a struggle. Voxter, the only reason that the baliffs get it every year is the extortionate charges that they add extra to the account which makes keeping up to date with the current year difficult - I don't want to have to keep paying baliffs but the council are far to quick to bring baliffs into the equation and do not seem to want to listen to householders who are in difficulty. When this year's account went to court, I was 2 months in arrears with my council tax - I rang the council up to talk about it before the hearing date and the response I got was nothing can be done until the liability order has been granted, ring back after that date. By the time it actually went to court I was only 1 month in arrears, I rang the council back the day after it went to court which was the 26th August and was told that it was now too late, the account had been passed to baliffs and there was nothing I could do about it, that was when I decided to start paying the council direct by internet transfer into their account and have done so ever since. Sorry to rant but the council really get my back up!!

Thanks for the replies - I have wrote a letter to the baliffs informing them that I have been sending payments to the council each month since September and would they refer it back to the council - not received a reply on that as yet but yesterday I got home and there was a letter in the post from them stating the following 'Your goods are now at risk' Your case has now been allocated to my team to conclude. We are scheduling your case into our Removal Team's workload for immediate seizure and removal of goods. Your goods will then be sold at public auction to the highest bidder. Auctioneer and storage costs will be added to the above balance. In any event our Removal Team's attendance charges which will be no less than £95.00 will become payable by you also. To prevent the above action you must telephone ******* immediately to arrange full payment. In the absence of any contact, we shall have no option than to continue as above. Does anyone have any advice?? I have never let anyone into the house or even spoke to the baliffs, my main worry was that my car could be taken - most of the time it is not parked at the house as I stay at my boyfriends most of the time, so hopefully it will be ok. The reason that I hadn't paid my council tax dates back years to the fact that when I split with my long term partner I was left with many debts one being council tax and baliffs got involved and for the past 5 years I have struggled to pay the baliffs, then got in trouble with the next year's payment meaning that again it goes to baliffs - just when you think that you are getting on top of things everything goes wrong again. I am so glad of this site as in previous years I have just paid the baliffs and their fees (Rossendales) and from what I have read on this forum it looks like they overcharged me by around £300 each year in fees, they were never let into the house but always the fees increased - now I am thinking that hopefully following the advice of some of the posts I can SAR them and get some of these fees back but in the meantime can anyone help me with the present problem?