On the face of it, this case appears to be very worrying. A lot is dependent upon what correspondence you had previously received from your council. BUT... If you sent an income and expenditure breakdown to them BEFORE they engaged bailiffs then you should have been considered for an attachment order. Simply not having sufficient income is no excuse for the council to bulldoze on with bailiffs. As others have alluded to, you should now write to the council and raise the point regarding their hasty decision to use bailiffs as opposed to the more logical option of an attachment. It is very important for you to also outline your vulnerability, much of which should be already on their records. I recently endured an almost identical scenario to yours. I had to fight tooth and nail with the council over every aspect. What became clear to me is that they won't concede an inch without a fight.

Hi, I need help urgently with Martsons I have unwillingly paid a fine owed by a relative who used to live at the house.... On Thursday 22nd Jan I received a hand delivered final notice letter stating that the bailiff would be calling back to remove goods from my house or collect money ect.. . It was in the name of my son who has not been at our house for about 2 years (won't go into it). I immediately called the bailiff (Mr Hickey) to inform him that the person he was chasing doesn't live with us anymore and he began stating that it was against the address and he was coming in if we didn't give him money and he was coming back the next day with a removal team... We tried calling the police who put us on to the court who issued the warrant who said they was putting a hold on it, I got an email the next day off the court advising they had told Martson to do further checks into his whereabouts, but the bailiff still turned up with a small white van and despite us explaining to him the courts had contacted his offices he refused to listen and got irate and began phoning his colleagues to bring a bigger van.. I didn't know what to do and offered him the lowest amount he'd take to just go away (£445). I've already contact Marston via email and forwarded them the message off the courts and explained I was coerced into parting with cash for fear of loosing my property and have asked for my money back. My husband owns our house and we even offered him ID and proof of ownership which was turned down and the police where no help (probably as it was them that issued the order) Do I stand any chance of getting my money back? Thanks for any help you can offer... Jackie

Hello all, Wonder if anyone can help, A little while back my account was hacked and my personal details taken - along with a bank account withdrawal This was resolved earlier this year, however today I have had a baliff attend saying that I owe £950 to a payday loan company. Now I have never had a payday loan in my life so know this is linked back. He had court paperwork - I asked for a copy which he said he would get for me- and it was for a previous address which is why I never got it to defend it. So my question is what is my next step? I have spoken to them on the phone and they have said they cannot do anything until the "appropriate court steps" have been taken by me, I have no idea what these are and what I need to get filled in Do I need to arrange for a judge to look at it? Whats the cost/ timescales with this? Any help greatly appreciated

Hi all, My story is a rather messy one, I think so anyway..my solicitor and other professional bodies I've spoken to don't seem to think so though but I'm still scared out my wits and have been feeling a lot more ill than usual since all this started, my depression and paranoia have shot through the roof to the point where I'm not leaving the house for days at a time. I'm seriously on the edge....Anyway I'll start at the beginning... I was called in for an IUC around 5 weeks ago now because they received an allegation that I was living with a partner. I know who made the allegation...It was my ex best friend, we had a bitter fall out, she even warned me she was going to do it but I never thought she would because she knew she would be telling lies. Anyway basically I've allowed a male friend to stay with me for around the past 18 months but have allowed him to use my address for a lot longer than that. Before he moved in he used my address to apply for loans etc, I didn't know there was anything wrong with that. I've been in bad debt for years and he basically used the loans etc to buy furniture for my home. I pay him back money out of my benefits every month which can be seen on my bank statement. No money at all comes from him to me and we have no joint accounts. We lead completely separate lives as far as cooking, laundry, watching tv etc goes. We even have our own sky boxes, tv's and our own PC's...couldn't be more separate if we tried! I'm disabled and currently on IS and CTB...I also get DLA. I own my own home so don't claim HB or anything. I also have mental health and addiction problems and NEED someone to live with me, the thought of living on my own 24/7 scares me to death plus with my disability I need a lot of help doing various things around the house. I can't even change a light bulb. Ok so back to the interview...it was clear they wanted me to admit we were living as a couple but I refused to admit to something I'm not guilty of. I did admit we had a brief "fling" or whatever you want to call it back in the summer for 3 months but our living arrangements still stayed the same. They basically just asked me questions about our living arrangements as I mentioned above and whether or not we socialise together etc. What really shocked me was they had contacted his employer to find out when he started working there and to find out what address he had put down which obviously was mine as he's used mine for years, they had copies of his credit files from a credit reference agency with details of all loans etc he had taken out again which all showed my address. They had print outs of my bank statements for the last year which CLEARLY shows he does not contribute to my household in any way but in fact I pay him money each month towards the loans he took out to but furniture etc for my home. They asked me about various transactions, nothing too serious. I think they had a printout of his facebook account as I recognised his profile picture on a piece of paper they held up...they didn't actually put any of the evidence down in front of me, they only held it up sideways which really bugged me. They also asked if I had one and whether it was active or not. Facebook?? honestly?? They could have just taken me to a computer and looked at mine then and there but no they want me to think they are accessing it privately which is fine I really don't care. At the end of the interview they said they may contact my neighbours to ask their view on whether or not they see us as being a couple or not which I find rediculous as they barely know me/him. I like to lead a private life, my neighbours are not the nicest of people and what if this creates a backlash of absuse against me?? They also said they may ask him to come in and speak to them but he does NOT have to attend. Well the letter came in a couple of weeks ago asking him to phone and make an appointment but he's so furious about his employer being contacted he's refusing to cooperate. He's not bothered about them digging into his financial details as he/we have nothing to hide but he's embarassed and stressed out that his employer may think he's linked to a fraud case. Does anyone know if this will harm my case in any great way given that they did say he was under no obligation to attend? There was also a man from the council present, he didn't ask many questions, I'm guessing because the main part of the interview went on for nearly 2 hours. But I did find it strange that he was the one that asked about my health conditions. Should I have notified the council of someone living in my house even though they were not contributing financially? I feel like I want to put in a complaint about the way I was treated at the IUC...at the end he was very intimidating (my advocate that I took in with me agreed) and asked me repeatedly at the end were we living together as a couple...he was CLEARLY trying to get me to admit guilt. I've read the legislation on IUC's and this is against the rules. He also said further investigations would need to be done because there was a few contradictions in the answers I had given. Now when I first went in I offered to let them see the bottles and leaflets of the medication I was on which clearly states side effects of memory problems and mental confusion and they COMPLETELY disregarded this, didn't even look at them or barely acknowledge my advocate telling them. So it ended with them telling me they would be conduction further investigations under the RIPA Act. Sorry if this story seems all jumbled up, my head is all over the place at the moment. I'm basically not denying he lives here or has used my address for however many years but I am disputing the fact that they think we are a couple and they think he has been living here a lot longer than he actually has been. I can see how it looks on paper because of the credit stuff but SURELY they cannot charge me with fraud based on this evidence alone. Unfortunately he has no proof of a previous address because he stayed with various friends/family just like he is with me at present. By the way...I used to work for DWP and process claims and we were told that people using other peoples addresses for claims etc was fine so I don't see how that's any different!! That's the main reason I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. Thanks for reading, any help/advice would be very appreciated.

Hi, I have a Council Tax debt from last year which had a Warrant issued in March. Can't argue about the debt, but I have not yet been able to start making repayments due to financial troubles. I only moved to this area within the last year, and in the old area the LO followed a distinct pattern of letters that took place before the matter would leave the council's books. About a month after the warrant, you'd be sent a very strongly worded letter giving you 14 days to pay. About 2 months after that, you'd get a final warning that further collections activity would commence if you didn't arrange to pay within 14 days. Rather stupidly, I assumed this was standard practice and so anticipated these letters would arrive to put the matter off for long enough for me to sort my finances out and pay them. It seems the my new LO doesn't work that way (should've guessed really when they charge £85 for a court summons vs £60 where I used to live). I had the summons issued, and today have come home to a hand delivered letter from Rossendales (it was left hanging out of the letterbox so I've put it back there for obvious reasons), with no warning at all that they were going to start bailiff action (I also find it odd they're using Rossendales when they are an LA who have outsourced their admin to Capita) Rossendales in their letter have stated that I can still pay by instalments with an initial payment of £50, but they haven't stated their costs. I'm not going to attempt to avoid the debt, but I want to make sure that I do not pay a penny more than necessary in bailiff's fees and so want to be a bit more clued up before contacting them. Can anyone confirm what the maximum fee should be for a single delivered letter, if anyone with experience of know what instalments they are likely to take, and whether an instalment plan with the bailiffs would be subject to a levy (provided their costs are not insane, I can probably borrow the money to pay them off in full within a week or 2). One thing I find a bit odd is the date of the warrant is printed on the letter, but everything else is written on by hand (even saying it's for council tax is a tick box, there are other options for Road Traffic debt etc). It also has been stapled to something else at some time. Although it's hand delivered, I'm almost the actual bailiff has not been here - my car was parked outside (it's now been moved 5 miles away) and my front facing windows were wide open all day so the seizure which they apparently intended to do could easily have been done. The full text of the letter is: