Hi, My business partner and I are going to be registering our company very soon. I know that somewhere into the process, we're going to need to open a business bank account and designate that as our main account for the business. About 3 years ago, I opened a business account and had a business loan that was connected with that account when I opened it (by Lloyds TSB). This company was as a sole trader and wasn't a registered company. I had some payment issues and the business account was eventually closed, as I'd missed some loan repayments/late payments, etc. Ultimately, the loan was sold on by Lloyds and I've been paying it back ever since. I didn't go bankrupt or anything like that, and the loan wasn't a large sum of money. But I lost the business bank account in the process. I've been paying off the loan ever since through a debt consolidation company and all is fine in that regard. I was wondering if I'm likely to experience issues when opening a business bank account now? I'd use a different bank and I wouldn't be looking to get a loan or anything like that. It would purely be myself and my business partner using it as our official business bank account. Any help on this would be much appreciated,

Waitrose Online Shopping:- Do they give a stuff about your refund for an unsuitable returned item? I think not and you won't get a refund easily if my experience is anything to go by. Is this Company Policy or is it the Store Manager who can't or won't manage? I made an online order which arrived in early February, an item was substituted I was offered 2 salmon fillets instead of the 4 that I had ordered. I refused the substitution as we are a multi person family, the driver told me I would get the substituted item credited back within 7 days, (£5.99). This did not happen, I contacted Customer Services via email, (I always do everything in writing as phone calls are easily forgotten), they said the refund would happen within a further 7 working days and they would contact the local store. Another 7 days; nothing! I again contacted Customer Services (the same agent) by email they said they had contacted the store who would credit my card withion 5 to 7 days and the Store would email me confirming that. Guess what? Nothing! So, one month from the initial order delivery, I made copies of my order, my emails and my card account and went out of my way to the Store and explained the issue to a Customer Services Supervisor who then refunded me the £5.99 in cash, plus £15.01 for my expenses, i.e. paper ink, diesel and my time with a "Sorry" She took all of the paperwork from me and said I would probably get a phone call from her manager to find out more. Have you guessed? No I didn't! I honestly believe that if I had not chased them, I would have had £5.99 appropriated from me with the apparent intention of permanently depriving me of it. There has been more than a little negligence in that way they have dealt with my money but at what level? So to date I have been refunded my costs, (barely) and a verbal sorry from a supervisor, nothing else. What did I expect? At least a verbal or written apology and explanation from the Manager as to why the Store failed me. So, no more online shopping because I can not trust Waitrose to do the honest thing without a fight or the right thing in hindsight. Can you? There are other supermarkets out there.

I have been looking into entitlements all day and I am just going round in circles. I could really do with some advice. The abolishment of the family element in housing benefit is my main worry. I don't know if it will affect me or not? I have a 2.5 year old and our second baby is due in May, and according to 'entitledto' we will be entitled to some housing benefit in 16/17. But I don't know if this will start after I have the baby, or when I go on maternity leave in April. Also, as mentioned above, I don't know whether the abolishment will affect the result I am getting. I know it only affects new claims after 1st May, so if I submit my claim in April when my maternity leave starts- will I be entitled to the family element? I am thinking I will still get it, because I already have a child and my circumstances are changing prior to 1st May. Now, it seems I will be entitled to more help (around an extra £70 a month) if I do not continue with my childcare vouchers through my employer. But I don't want to opt out of the scheme to find that the calculations were all wrong and I would have been better off with continuing with the childcare vouchers. Would it be possible to cancel the childcare vouchers once I've heard back regarding my claims? Anything else I need to consider? Thank you in advance!

Hi, I hope someone can help me as this issue became rather frustrating for me for the last couple of days. I have been with Vodafone for 4 years (2x24 month contract) and 11th Feb 2016 was my contract end date. I have called few days before the end date to state I want to leave Vodafone to use another provider. At that point I was stupidly fooled into accepting new bundle plan for 12 months and was thinking that I got a pretty good deal with them. That was until I received the email about my new bundle. I realised that what I accepted on phone and what is on the email is very different and immediately called them to explain this and cancel the new plan as I had 14 days to cancel it. (We discussed 2 gb and email was stating I have 250 mb allowance) Live chat couldn't help me and requested me to call Vodafone. When I called, customer service told me to call next day. I called them again on next day and I have waited 1.6 hour on phone with more than dozens of transfer and what is even more frustrating that each time I have been transferred to someone I had to explain the whole thing from the beginning. After all that waste of time I have been told that offices are closed and I have to call back tomorrow. I got really frustrated as this was a common thing for them to say to shake things off. It was around 16:25pm so I told the officer that I don't believe that there is no one to talk to at that hour. She talked to some one and said that she will transfer me to her colleague and a guy picked up the phone and said that he can process things for me, then he put me on hold and after that he said he can confirm the process is done. this was his exact words. he said that new plan will be finished by midnight that day. I said i want to keep my number and need pac code and he said that they need to transfer me to another department for that and transferred me, I was in the middle of talk when I lost my service on my mobile and line cut out. After that I called vodafone from my landline to explain the situation but no one could help me as they did not recognise me or my number. This is quite hard to believe as I was their 4 year customer until 5 minutes ago! They said they have no idea where my number goes and they can't take it back that there is no way. Also at some point when I was not getting any progress with cancellation I've been told that I have to cancel my new plan first and then it would go back to my previous plan and if i want to leave vodafone then I have to cancel that too. But I've been literally chucked out with my everything on the system. I am guessing I frustrated them by insisting they should help me and when they realise I did not want to stay or buy new bundle they chuck me out completely. If I knew that I would ask for a couple of weeks beforehand like a notice period and handle everything which causes me problem now. As a result of this nightmare; I have lost my number which I use for my business contacts, banks, email accounts and almost everything in UK. Since I need a code sent to my number for accessing many things such as banks, facebook, email accounts etc. I am stuck not knowing what to do. Not to mention that I have just printed bunch of business card with my number on it a month ago! This will cause me a big destruction on my business if I can't get my number back. I even offered to buy it back but they did not help me with it. I also want to mention that this is not the first time Vodafone messed with my life. Last year they have charged me 649 gbp and cancel my contract accidentally (?!) and they did not pay me back, I had to request money from my bank saying that it has been taken illegally. During that 11 days I have lost business time, could not do any bank transaction as it requires code and been stressful every day of it. They were only able to activate it again 2 weeks later. I just want this fixed please. I am applying for indefinite leave to remain here and I have supplied my business number to home office, I do not want to keep changing my details as it does not look professional at all. This may interfere with my application if they call and realise the number is not recognised.. If this wouldn't get resolved soon they would leave me no chance but to sue as I want to claim my business damage with interruptions to bank transfers and preventing communication. does anyone know what should be my next step regarding this matter?

I separated almost two years ago from my partner, we have a son together and had a jointly owned home. I had to leave as he wouldn't and i took only a car worth under £2000, he kept the home (which we had a loan against to which i paid monthly payments to), the homes contents and two assets worth aprox £1000. He has sold the home and made profit of £12,000 aprox, which i only recently found out about. I signed away my right to any financial settlement in the home on the belief that there was no financial gain made and in good faith. I had continued to pay my share of the loan i thought was still owed on the home and requested a settlement figure, it was shortly after this i discovered from my ex partners admission the financial gain he had made and i stopped paying the loan as the money made on the home more than covered this loan in full. He feels he is entitled to this gain and that i should continue to pay the loan, which he has chosen not to pay off with the profit made from the house. In short i stupidly trusted my sons father to be fair, but he is now taking me to county court to continue to pay the loan back. There is no written agreement and nothing is in my name as he has taken a loan out in his fathers name, but says i have to pay because i have shown by my previous payments i had been making, that i owe him this money. Does he have legal standing?

Hi, we have a suspended repossession order from 2010 (when my partners ex wife was still on the mortgage, she is now no longer) and we have fell into arrears of 6100 over the 5 year period due to unemployment. We made a partial payment in august last year and missed a payment in November last year other than that we have maintained our mortgage payments and have been paying some off the arrears each month for nearly 2 years, now the Halifax have said they are going to be seeking an eviction date if we don't pay £3000 by the 28th of this month. We have kept them informed of the payments missed and have tried to come to new payment arrangements with them each time. We spoke to a man at the Halifax in December who said that we had to pay the full arrears or it would go to repossession, we explained that we didn't have access to that sort of money so we couldn't pay that much, then we spoke to a different woman at the Halifax last week trying to come to an arrangement were we pay £100 extra a month to clear the arrears quicker and she said that if we paid £1400 it would stop any more proceedings, then we got a phone call on Friday saying that we had to pay £3000 by the 28th of the month or they would seek an eviction date, we explained that we didn't have access to that sort of money and that my partner didn't get paid until the 29th of the month and we would be making a payment of £625 (which includes the £100 we said we would pay to clear the arrears quicker), she then replied that they would be sending us an eviction date. We are panicking now as we have 3 children, our eldest child is in her final year at juniors and we are currently waiting to hear if she has got her secondary school place, she also suffers from anxiety, our second child also has epilepsy and possible autism (we have just got an appointment with a specialist doctor after a 19 month wait) so everything is in place at his school for his needs, the Halifax are aware that we have children and one with a disability. I had to give up work in June last year due to severe hand eczema and stress and anxiety, however my partner has a good job and can pay the mortgage and the arrears no problem. I am really really worried they are going to repossess our home as I don't drive and we won't get a private rent in the area and if the council put us in an area where I won't be able to get my children to school, I don't want to have to change my children's schools as there is support in place for them at the schools they are currently in and it could change my sons hospitals and doctors if we aren't in the catchment area. I am going to write to the Halifax with our proposal again, with a breakdown of how long it will take to pay the arrears back, I just don't know what else to say to them and I think it will be rejected as well, I just don't know what else to do.

E-cigarettes will be prescribed on the NHS for the first time in the New Year but ministers are said to have tried to keep the move quiet over fears that GPs would be overrun by people demanding them. Doctors will soon be able to hand out the device to smokers who want to quit, a move that will reportedly cost the NHS in the region of £20 per kit and £10 a week for each patient's cartridges. But public health minister Jane Ellison is said to have hoped that the government could keep the news under wraps until the e-cigarettes are available via prescription in 2016. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3348012/First-e-cigarettes-prescribed-NHS-New-Year.html#ixzz3uKQQm9aG

A/ Why are hover boards sold if you can't use them on the pavement or road. B/ why do people text while crossing the road. C/ Why do some young people wear there trousers half way down. D/ Why do some people shout at someone if they are next to them. Any ideas of the above would be welcome and perhaps some of your own..

Well I had a business debt, I had written to the supplier several times as they hiked up the price on what was agreed when it was invoiced. Recently a bailiff they transferred the case to turned up - He had a camera filming me, he did not tell me this was happening or ask if he could film? I asked why - he said for security? as if a small elderly person against a big 6 foot ex army bailiff could become violent - I am not talking about a lot of money here but I want to know how these people that are there to terrify you should be treated. There had been no court papers served and had there been I would have happily gone to court and defended the case. This man suggested I would have to pay his large charges on top of the outstanding balance. He said coming pre court he was doing me a favour!! I thought high court bailiffs could only come threatening/intimidating once court action had been completed? these people are on television apparently - if ever there is a next time I want to know how to respond to them and share this with others so we are all prepared!

No doubt you have all seen it on the news that an ex army man has been arrested in connection with a death on bloody Sunday in NI. How absolutely disgusting is this as they not only freed all the murdering IRA but gave them top jobs in the parliament. Now this really is what you call Micky Mouse justice.

Excellent FOI question asking about electronic signing pads and an equally informative reply from the DWP FOI Team. Download it and use it when you're asked to sign electronically. My only concern about signing electronically is worrying whether it has actually triggered the payment successfully - I'd still prefer to have the clerk put my money through while I'm sat there to see it. Question and response can be found here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/requirement_to_give_biometric_si#comment-59764 Basically, we do not have to use the electronic signing pad; they can only 'encourage' us. No sanction can be applied for refusal to use it. You can bet that the advisers will not mention this to you. Interesting to note that not only does the pad record your signature, it also measures the angle of the pen, pressure of the writing and speed too. Big Brother knows no limitations, does it. Another request was for all signing pad guidance issued to advisers, that can be found here:) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/electronic_signing_pad_guidance Had a quick read through - most interesting. If your signatures don't match after 3 tries for any reason, they're going to want to know why AND expect you to provide more ID like driving licence etc. Also there is NO mention of electronic signing not being compulsory (did we really expect there would be!). Even the sample letter they give telling you all about it makes no mention that it's optional.

Several weeks into the post-ESA struggle for existence and I received the oddest phone call today from my "benefits advisor". Essentially it amounted to her pleading with me not to close my ESA claim. It was so mind-boggling, given the current climate of attack on the benefits system, that I have to set it out here in some detail. The advisor was responding to my letter declining the appointment made between me and her by the powers that be. Essentially I'd said - if they've stopped my ESA to what end would I be attending the appointment. I assumed that the people who stopped my benefit forgot to tell those making the appointments about the stopping. We are all accustomed to government departments which lack joined up thinking or performance. The woman says she's received my letter but please, why don't I apply for income based ESA. I tell her that (a) I can't face going through the whole assessment procedure again because of the stress and negative impact on my health and (b) when my husband was forced into early retirement he got his lump sum which is just enough to put me out of the running for benefit At which point she plays another card. They'll still be paying my NI benefits so I can't get away with not attending the appointments. I then say fine, stop them. Surely you can't expect me to drag myself an hour's journey each way for the sake of a meagre NI payment? It knocks me back for a whole day. The same woman who gave me such uphill the few times I saw her then proceeds to plead with me to let her keep my claim open, register that she spoke to me so I don't have to keep the appointment, and thus buy myself time to rethink the issue. What's going on here? I don't for one minute imagine that she's concerned for my welfare. Or at least not beyond not wanting me to be another addition to the scandalous statistics of the despairing poor, ill and infirm who have died as a consequence of the attacks on the social health and welfare systems. I reckon she's merely acting on instructions to go through the motions of seeing that people who come off benefits are given "assistance" and "advice". Meantime, we all know that people like me, the walking wounded, are the targets whom Ossie Ostrich has in his budgetary sights. Someone in my situation would be declined for ESA were I to apply afresh today. An asthmatic epileptic with a history of biomechanical and mental health problems is considered perfectly fit for work. (Cross the floor of the job centre to the desks dealing with JSA and they would deny this but there you go...............) Then there's that pesky £16 000 my husband received after 30 years of public service. It makes us "wealthy retirees" - we can eke this out over the next few years. If we're careful and only use it to build his monthly pension to two thirds of the official poverty line, it will last three years or four years. By the time we run out of all our resources and have absolutely nothing, not even our ability to work, to depend on, state assistance of any kind will have disappeared. So why's this woman calling me? What's she after? .

Hi guys, Got a bit of an issue with a PCN on a car I sold to a work colleague. The PCN came through and I gave it to him to sort out believing (a bit naively) that he would do so. He didn't, and it eventually went to a debt collection agency (Phoenix Commercial Collections). Once that happened I confronted him and told him in no uncertain terms I would not be happy if he continued to leave it. He has since set up a payment plan with the debt collectors and is paying it off (I'll be checking up on this if I can). I've today received a letter from the council who say; "Someone has written to us, explaining that the vehicle had been sold to them prior to the date of the contravention. However, the case is out of our hands: the enforcement agents now have a warrant to recover the money from you." They then go on to chastise me for parking on a double yellow line, despite them knowing it wasn't me. By the sound of it they hold parking on double yellows at 6:30am on a Monday morning as highly as the crimes of murder and treason. Frankly I'm lucky they aren't going for beheading in this case. They then give me the details of the collection agency and tell me I can seek independent legal advice. Now this letter has got my back up a bit here as I'm somewhat of an innocent party, the only thing I'm guilty of is trusting that a work colleague wouldn't f**k me over. I'd like to know what this county court warrant means. Is this a CCJ? Is this going to affect my credit rating in any way? My rating is currently recovering from me being an idiot as a student and I've worked incredibly hard to begin to get it to a place where I might be able to buy a house. This has got me quite worried!! Thanks in advance for any advice you have for me!

Please help running out of options. Judge threw out our statutory declaration as out of time. No one will overturn judges decision despite all the evidence. We bought a car in 2011 from a neighbour. Registered and insured it. Two days later that car was stolen from us. The police were informed and took a statement for it to be reported stolen. They never found the car and it was never returned to us. The police told us to write off what we had paid for the car and cut all ties to it. We did this and cancelled the insurance we had. Apparently the dvla took us to court ( without our knowledge ) have said the case was successfully prosecuted. It was prosecuted because we never received the court summons so never turned up. The case was for keeping a vehicle that does not meet insurance standards. Our appeal was accepted in 2013 and the case was closed. The same appeal was sent to the dvla but they didn't respond until 2014 and it was no comment. Fast forward to Saturday 5th September baliffs banging down the door, assaulted me by forcing the door back on me and used an illegal threshold manoeuvre. Illegally clamped our (fully insured, fully taxed) vehicle and the police made us hand over our keys. Thursday 10th September the baliffs steals our car without authorisation and hits me side on with his vehicle when I ran out to get a warrant or authorisation from him. Marston's baliffs seem to act like rabid dogs all the time! Disgusting creatures to deal with. He was forced to return our car and the keys on Friday September 11th which he did. He also made a report against me for criminal damage. Apparently I ran out into the road and struck his fast moving vehicle! if I had been able to strike his fast moving vehicle the injuries to my arm would be on the inside of my arm not the outside. Personal injury solicitor taking my case against him. Same Friday judge threw out our statutory declaration as out of time. We are not paying a debt we do not owe as we have no legal obligation to insure a car we do not own and was stolen from us. The amount is £628 plus baliffs fees which they told us is triple the amount. Where do we go next please?

Hi. I had a medical last month with ATOS, and got a letter recently putting me in 'work related activity group' . I then got an appointment with the job centre which I went to last week. It was basically a woman talking what to me, with what sounded like jibberish for 10 minutes before handing me a paper leaflet called 'work programme' , it didn't really have a lot of information on it. Yesterday I got a phone call from another lady from a company called 'prospects' we were on the phone for about half an hour whilst she reeled off bizarre questions which had no relevance to my situation whatsoever, she also didn't really know why I was on ESA . and said I had been found fit for work which is why I'm on the work programme . But if I had been found 'fit for work' then would I not be on JSA instead ?! I have been told to expect a letter or a call next week from my 'new advisor' who will arrange an appointment with me. I a!m ever so confused now. Theres no way I can sit in any 'group inductions' or go off on any courses, not at the moment anyway. I'm trying to remain calm but this has panicked me no end. Am I suppose to be on a 'work programme' so soon? And what does it entail?

If you were a policyholder with Standard Life when it demutalised in 2006, you would have been entitled to cash or shares. There are still 60,000 people who can claim shares and about 5,000 entitled to claim cash. Those who held a with-profits policy which started before March 2004 and was in force in October 2005 may be eleigible. The last date for claims is 9th July 2016. Anyone with a valid claim should contact Capita Asset Services on 0345 608 1478 http://www.standardlife.co.uk/c1/news-and-blog/uncategorized/dont-miss-money-thats/

I moved in on February 12th 2015. I received a letter relating to a debt of some £40 for electricity for 27/1 - 8/2/2015. My dad emailed them my tenancy agreement which clearly stated that I moved in after this date. They emailed dad back and pretty much accepted this as proof that this debt isn't mine and the matter is resolved. I received another letter over this and returned the letter. I put on the letter "not known at this address. please return to sender". That was March / April. I heard nothing and assumed the matter was resolved. I've now received a letter from LCS over this. I am not sure what to do now. EDF have a copy of my tenancy agreement, which clearly states I moved in after the date of the electricity debt. Advice please?

Today's show. He spoke to the Parking Prankster and Patrick Troy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05xbsts HB

Hi, I did some mystery shopping a few years ago, so declared myself as 'self-employed'. I didn't think I had to do a tax return for 13-14 as I didn't actually do any mystery shopping, that year so I was hit with a 100 pound fine. No tax was owed. I'm a student who could really do without this, I'm not even a proper 'self-employed' person! I appealed and it was rejected. On my letter, it says there is a 5 percent penalty on an unpaid payment 30 days, 6 months and 12 months after the due date. So if I didn't pay the penalty for 12 months, is it correct that I would owe around 115 pounds? What if I still didn't pay? I used the calculator on the HMRC website, but that only applied interest to the actual tax bill, which would be 0 in my case, not the penalty, so I'm confused.

Hello This week I switched my home insurance to Home Protect, arranging to pay it monthly. Today, I heard from a company called Premium Credit, telling me that Home Protect had set up the credit arrangement for the insurance through them. I was then asked to register on their website and also to electronically sign a copy of the CCA1974 agreement. It also stated that if I hadn't signed by 27th April, then they would add £10 to my account! So my question is, can they actually legally do this? I thought the terms of the CCA1974 states you should sign ONLY if you wished to be bound by it. Effectively, they are fining me if I don't. Clearly, they just want to be able to guarantee any potential court action they might take would be successful by having a "signed" CCA1974 form but this just sound wrong to me. Any advice would be much appreciated. I see this particular company has been posted about before for exorbitant charges for failed direct debits which doesn't surprise me!

Hi everyone, It's been a while since I last posted here, mum's been v ill and I haven't been able to participate in forums like I used to! I am hoping someone can help me. I had some debt written off in 2011 due to severe ill health (before write off I was on debt management plan). One of my creditors was a credit union with whom I had a loan (under £1000). I've been trying to get my finances sorted and when I looked through my paperwork, I didn't have any default notice from them, but they registered a default in 2011. I contacted the accounts department and asked if they could send me over a copy of the default notice and received the following reply: "Your loan was originally defaulted on 18/08/2011 due to your DMP with CCCS, it was defaulted as the payment we were receiving from them was only a token payment and not something that would be accepted in normal circumstances. In this circumstance, a creditor does not have to provide written notice that they will be filing a default, therefore we did not issue one to you." This doesn't really seem right to me, surely they have to issue a default notice regardless? Can anyone with a bit more knowledge than me tell me if what the creditor is saying is true? Thanks so much for your time. Lou

hello, george, new guy, with a question: i have a temp agency pushing me to go on an umbrella pay thing, but i have no interest in this guff. can i insist on normal paye? if they continue to annoy ,e with this, i might just boot them anyway. thanks. gmcn.

I thought I would post this here due to the other issues with the Police acting with other agencies on civil debt from allowing debtors to leave the UK. Full story here http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/uk/if-you-don-t-pay-your-bills-you-could-be-banned-from-leaving-the-uk-1.768944 Original story from here http://www.scoop.it/t/lacef-news Is this going to be another "METGATE"

Hi, Last year I was working on an electronics project for a car, which I posted on a forum many and people got excited about and wanted to buy for their cars. In the end, I decided to raise money to bring the costs down so I can buy the components in bulk. I sold 4 pre-orders for £65 each which was literally the cost for 1 unit per person. The total was £360 that was raised (Someone donated an extra £100 but made it clear he didn't want it back, although my intention was to refund him at some point). I spent over £500 in total for the parts since everything had to bought in bulk. Problems began when a vital part turned out very hard to get, only 1 person on their own makes this part and they didn't provide any support for it. Along with some other issues. The project went on hold for a long time, and now I'm selling my old car to pay everyone back, my car still hasn't sold, despite dropping the price heavily, just seems no one wants to buy it. I had an email from one of the people demanding to pay him back this week or he will start a CCJ. Problem is, I have £30 to my name which is borrowed money. Can I send him all the parts that value up to the £65 that he has paid for? I literally can't borrow money from anyone at this point.

Hi, Complicated one. I have sleep apnoea which is proving hard to treat. I've had a bus pass for years and work for the council that issued it. It ran out end of last year. It was easy to get the first pass. I had never felt comfortable to drive and only ever had a few lessons. A colleague told me that if I couldn't drive I would be eligible for a pass and as managers were putting pressure on me to resume lessons I decided that a voluntary report of my illness to DVLa was the best thing. I'd had the provisional licence for years and didn't want to risk pressure to restart the lessons that I'd stopped due to illness. I got a letter instructing me to return my provisional licence and felt relieved. I filled in the form for the bus pass and that was it. Fast forward 3 years and several people in the council insist that a DVLA letter is the only way but I hit the first brick wall as I no longer have a licence to revoke. I wrote emails to my GP (although I have been told that a GP's letter is not sufficient) and the DVLA. DVLA responded that I must complete a form D1, enclose a medical form relating to sleep apnoea and a covering letter explaining that I needed this for a bus pass. I rushed it all into the post before Christmas and included a print of the email from DVLA. I got it all back today with a covering letter stating that it cannot be considered as I didn't include a passport sized photograph. I didn't pay attention to that bit as I am not applying for an actual licence I just need a letter stating that they won't give me a licence. This has delayed everything. Is it worth phoning DVLA and trying to reason with them? Do I really have to go and get a load of photos taken and wait again for the post to-ing and fro-ing. Ironically my GP wrote to me two weeks ago confirming that she would support my application. But the council won't accept it. Any advice on cutting the red tape appreciated. I travel a lot related to my work but not all of it is directly at work's request (small member funded professional association) so that bus pass was useful. Also I live in a very remote area and have to travel long distances to shop.