Dementia risk now included as part of NHS Health Check READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dementia-risk-now-included-as-part-of-nhs-health-check

BFPOs included in the MOD enduring families free mail service READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bfpos-included-in-the-mod-enduring-families-free-mail-service

For years I have been struggling with debt but I got in contact with payplan and applied for a DRO. All the paperwork was set up with all my debts on. Council tax is with Marstons. I then received a letter from Rundles saying they were recovering council tax. I thought the council and changed agents and now everything was with Rundles. I informed payplan and they amended the paper work. I was just about to pay the £90 fee when last week while I was in bed asleep after a nightshift. An Enforcement guy...tapped on the front door and walked in scaring the life outta my partner who was in the living room. He demanded that I pay £420 or he would take my living room items away (tv dvd player units ect) Tried to explain that I was paying my DRO fee at end of week. He was having none of it. I was scared and shaken up...I did not receive notice that he was coming. I didn't have the cash and he was adamant he was not leaving till I paid £420 or take my goods. I made some calls and manged to get about a months wages from my boss.( Agreement from boss that I pay from my wages straightaway which means at the moment i don't have money coming in to live on) Anyway I paid him and got a receipt. He was now arranging a payment plan for the rest. I told him I couldn't afford anything but he was insistent...All I wanted to do was to get him outta my house so I agreed to 20 a week. He made me sign what I thought was the payment plan but in fact was a control of goods I later noticed after he left. He also left an envelope on table which had inside a notice of attendance letter dated that same day in pen with a stamped date of the warrant for the following day. I got back k in touch with payplan who advised me that now that I had signed a control of goods order the council tax can not be included in the DRO. I am mortified as council tax is the main debt. I am now ready to pay the fee but holding back as I don't know what to do or where I stand. Oh and to add it,2 days ago I've received a letter from Marstons warning of a notice of attendance... Now I thought everything was with Rundles. I have checked the reference numbers and it's all from different years. Confused and scared is not the word!!! I don't know what to do. I am finally facing my debts and this happens a week before my DRO is finalised

Hello I took out a two year contract with EE, in September 2016, on their 4GEE Max Plan, for £45.99 per month. That plan was £5 per month more than the one below it, as it allowed you to use your call and data allowance whilst in the EU. Awesome! Except that when I took out the contract, I was unaware that everyone would be getting EU roaming within their price plans on the 15th June 2017! Called EE and basically it's hard cheese. The only thing they will do is move me to one of their new 4GEE Max Plans and have allowance calls in USA, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand for an additional £2 per month. Personally, I think it's a bit rough. In my eyes the contract has changed significantly and I'm not getting everything I was paying for. What does everyone else think?

BIT OF BACKGROUND... ..I have lost a court ccj against lowell, I tried twice to have it set aside, first time despite evidence that a ccj had gone to empty property not mine, (found 6 months later) letters from 3 neighbours stating long standing postal problems the judge at county court chose to not believe, only skip readed one, second time i tried to get it set aside i had a solicitor on it, he said that lowell had no deed of assignment and had not followed correct procedures on four counts, judge chose to ignore and said couldnt overturn first judge and was not familiar with my case, and to pay lowell. Also that i simply could not keep appealing/attempting to set aside... Lowell also had a student solicitor whom the courts refused to name at the first application to set aside, I believe that student had no right of audience, at the second attempt to set aside, their rep pretended to be a law lecturer, (was actually from an agency) actually verbally tore into mine outside the court room, and was very intimidating. Highly unproffessional, When i sought his name to make a complaint the court refused it simply saying they had only a reference number for him.... HOW IT STANDS NOW... My solicitor recommended that I offer lowell a token monthly payment. This I have done and am about to post it only to be told that my PIP is NOT counted as income, but only my ESA is. Before I alter my forms of exp and inc, can I clarify this point. Many thanks.

Hi Wonder if anybody could give advice. In 2013 purchased a car on conditional sale agreement. I returned the car recently under the conditions of the agreement I was due to pay half the value of the credit agreement. (In my case as I returned it earlier I need to pay the difference between what I had already paid and half the value) However, I do not agree with the figure given by the finance company. When looking at the details of the credit agreement further the deposit I paid and the value of my trade-in have not been deducted from the financed amount but instead have been added to it. Effectively I am paying my own deposit and trade-in value again but this time with interest! Can anybody advise me where I stand with this? Many Thanks

The IFA is long gone as he was associated with an Estate Agent and no longer works with them The policy is on a Norwich Union Life Insurance product I am still paying for with about 10 yrs left - the Payment protection was added onto the policy and I remember feeling quite pressured at the time to include it Who should i put a claim against ? The IFA or the company I pay premiums to Is there a standard letter I can send to activate the claim and start the 8 weeks countdown that the Financial Ombudsman require? Also would I need to request a SAR from Norwich Union (now Aviva) as I think when I moved overseas I may even have requested the PPI be cancelled Thanks, any help would be appreciated I am all at sea with this whole process!

Hello everyone. If I obscured too many details in the attachment please let me know and I'll reupload. How can I get rid of this charge? I was in the store's coffee shop working on my laptop, I have a bank statement showing the date and amount spent. It wasn't a huge amount, less than £10 because I wasn't shopping for groceries. I was just having coffee and some pastry/sandwich while working on my laptop. I shop at this store frequently, in fact it's the only store I go to shop for groceries. I spend loads at this place. So irritated to get this ticket... The lot wasn't even full! Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

After 6 years my Bankruptcy has finally been removed from my credit file. A default for one of the loans included also gone. However I have an old RBS bank account and loan account that for some reason weren't defaulted but were included in the BR that are still showing on my Equifax credit report as partially settled. I would like to get these removed. What are the chances?

Good evening. In a two-year small claims case (yes - two years!) it looks like things are finally heading to trial*. I am the defendant/counter-claimant and litigant-in-person. Other party also representing themselves. I have just exchanged documents with the other side. On reading their witness statements, I find that one of the statements makes explicit reference to previous settlement offers from us that were clearly marked 'without prejudice'. The figures cited are figures that were presented, but are used to misrepresent the actual offers/counteroffers dialogue (to make me sound unreasonable), without copies of the actual letters included. Question: can I ask the judge to dismiss this witness statement as inadmissible? Alternatively, can I choose to agree to having the 'without prejudice' letters admitted - but ALL of them including the other side's (although none have been included in the exchange documents)? This latter option would make it quite easy to show that the other side is unreasonable. Also, given that the claimant has effectively disclosed in a witness statement that they have offered to settle by paying me, does this imply they have 'dropped their claim'? Can they still go to court on their original premise, namely that I should pay them the outstanding part of their bill? Two other questions: Two of the statements share about 60% of the wording - word for word. As witnesses are meant to write statements 'in their own words', is this grounds for dismissing the statements? Also the witness statements provided by the other side are unreferenced (i.e. allegations without referring directly to related documents, such as quotes, e-mails, product data sheets, etc - although these, with the exception of the 'without prejudice' letters, are included in the exchanged documents, connection to the witness statement is not shown). How would a judge treat a statement that isn't referencing the relevant information? I have looked everywhere online for information specific to the main query, but I can't find anything that explains what I need to know. Can anyone advise me, ideally with reference to relevant law info that I could cite if necessary? Thank you so much. Sue *Details, in case anyone wants to know: the case concerns withholding final 10% of a bill - for faulty windows/fitting. Then being sued by joinery company, and counterclaiming. JOINT Expert report, commissioned a year into the case after pressure on claimants by a judge, found that the company owes me money, not the other way around, due to the nature of the defects - 6-10 times the amount they sued for. Judge at the last hearing pointedly advised parties to find a way to settle out of court. Claimants refused any reasonable offers of settlement (under 50% of max total expert estimate) and made what I consider silly offers (roughly 10% of joint expert's estimate). So far no joinery company I asked has been willing to take on the mess I have been left with, so I think the windows will need replacing - which will cost more than small claims maximum.

Hi everyone, I would appreciate any knowledge/help, to cut a long story short in 2004 i applied for a £1000 but then over 2 years i consolidated them into what i now know was 5 loans. i was stupid young naive! I recently received a letter from RBS offering me the chance to try and claim back any missold ppi in this letter were the dates and account numbers of the loans, along with the claim form/questionnaire. i filled in the form and has now been sent back. Today i phoned RBS to see if it had been received, which it hadn't and also to find out what amounts these loans added up to, as i have no paperwork, the helpful adviser gave me the figures, and also said that ppi was on all of them. if anyone knows if there is a way of finding out if i would entitled to any refund? a calculator of some sort? the accounts on these loans are closed now as i forgot all about them. thanks to everyone in advance

Have to compile this and have been reading about this in various places. However, my confusion is, how comprehensive should it be? Apologies if this sounds like a complete rookie question and I would imagine it's been answered here before, but I cannot find what I'm looking for. So question is, should it include anything past what I intend to use as evidence for my case and argument i.e. short witness statements (or is that truly part of the witness statment aspect?), costs in seeking employment, medical evidence (was mentally and physically unwell during my disciplinary for GM). etc? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

i need assistance with employment law, and personal injury claims. i would appreciate any advice that fellow CAG's can provided Work Related Breakdown i suffered a work related breakdown a year ago approx, however despite the problems at work i loved the actually job itself and always intended to return to work when i was well enough to do so, however i was pre empted financially and returned October last year and at that point formally started my grievance. like most people i had not idea of how a grievance procedure would work, so it was a massive learning curve. it is so unbelievably stressful and im still not fully well. all of the stresses remain as nothing had changed within the team on my return and my health has again deteriorated. Occ Health have recommended in writing that my place of work is toxic to my full recovery and i should leave. my p/trist is saying the same, as is my counsellor. they have all made clear that outside of that environment my health should improve enough for me to get another job doing the same type of work but with a different organisation! my question is this. is it possible for me to take civil action over and above tribunal action against my employer for the pysiatric injury they have caused me, in addition to which i had lost all my body hair. my head remains bald and i have to wear a wig, my eyebrow are going again, my arm and leg hair have gone, however my pubic hair did grow back a little. i am very grateful that my eyelashes have grown back - but for how long. i have been tested medically, the is no physical reason for the universal hair loss. constructive dismissal i am aware that the issue of constructive dismissal and discrimination can only be held in a Tribunal. but i would want to know how p/injury would work in a civil court, and could this take place more quickly than a Tribunal, and although not the right venue, will the issues of the discrimination, harrassment, bullying and victimisation come out at a civil hearing? i have an outstanding grievance appeal taking place by the end of March, it is likely to be negative, a little more detail first 'last straw' - manager held PPP (nearly 2 years since the previous one) tells me basically im c.... and that my colleagues have all complained about me, and gives examples of complaint. Fair enough. however all of this has come out of nowhere. manager provides no discussion or plan on how to resolve the situation between me and the rest of team, and goes off on 2 weeks holiday. naturally this has a devasting affect on my feeling toward the manager and the rest of the team, i have believed what he is saying. i make complaint to manager on his return and challenge all his accusation and complain that if the situation were true how is it he didnt try to help resolve the situation? i copy in HR. manager writes back taking no responsibility claiming i have misinterpreted and didnt say some of the things. my complaint was comprehensive and i gave back to him all the examples that he had used! a meeting was held. HR had lead me to believe that the meeting was a grievance as laid out in their policy, but it was a mediation meeting whereby the manager states again that i have mis interpreted and that in fact no one had complained about me - he failed to give any further information. he actually stated that i was made for the job. on hearing this however instead of making me feel better it devasted me further. i couldnt understand how he had done this to me in the first place. i had worked so hard and was so proud of the work. i went into freefall. from the time of the meeting with manager to what i thought was a grievance meeting was just over 2 months during which time there was a complete and utter breakdown between me and the rest of the team. i was signed off sick with work sky high blood pressure and related stress which i had desperately been trying to ward off. emloyer contact during sick leave during sick leave, the manager above my manager demanded to to see me, didnt advise that i could be accompanied and during the meeting told me basically that the best thing for me was to get my arse back on my chair and that in their experience involving the medical profession would mean that i would be off work longer! remember this talk at me is whilst i am unwell and vulnerable. end result even more freefall. during my sick leave there were a bombardment of letters from work, which stressed me out further than you can believe i felt hounded. i thought that it would be better to return to work even thougth my GP didnt think i was ready. i thought that it would be best to stop the hounding and make sure their were no more meetings with my managers manager. phased return meeting GP formally recommended this. unfortunately he did not specify a time. managers manager didnt want to follow GP's advice and tried to insist instead that if i felt tied i went home. luckily an HR officer was present and had to remind manager that it was normal in such circumstance and length of time away that a phased return take place. manager reluctantly agreed to 1 week! there was mention of a review, but no details of when the review would take place or who with. naturally 1 week was not enough. situation with team not resolved. i approach HR for help and am basically told to go away. i return to my GP who tries not to give the 'i told you so' and signs me off again. long term sick which brings me back to my return last year. Discrimination bullying and harrassment prior to the first last straw i had been suffering discrimination harrassment and bullying from another member of the team for a couple of year which i didnt handle very well. i absorbed it - but this just caused me to lose my body hair. i genuinely believe that this new member of staff would get used to me being there, also i had hoped that other members of the team would come to my defence when i was under attack from this 'colleague' - but no one did, some of them even joined in. this colleague was good at getting others to express their prejudices and the others knew better. i felt so isolated, ashamed and scared to say anything just in case they thought i was the one with the problem the one with the 'chip' so i said nothing. there was no one or manager that i had any trust or confidence in that i could take this matter to, so i suffered in silence, until the breakdown came. Employers investigate the complainant on making the complaint my employers carried out an investigation - a shock to me, a bigger shock was later learning that they had carried out an investigation on me too. thank God i was good at my job, good things were said about me. so they cant get me on that angle. grievance 1 outcome it transpired that others had complained also about my 'colleague' and my manager showed up themselves good and proper at the hearing. recommendations. words would be had with colleague and manager, but no grounds for discrimination - however.... appeal 'colleague' had actually admitted to what they thought would be a lesser complaint that they thought they could get away with, but this put employers in difficulty and they had to make a statement at the appeal confirming that at least one act of discrimination had taken place. it was agreed (and is on tape) that i was the brunt of this 'colleagues' abusive behaviour promotion of the main perp it was always the intention of my 'colleague' to get me out of the team and take over my Officer status and effect they way up from what they considered to be a lowly administrative position. they have now achieved this. even with the outcome of the grievance they still hold this position. what does this say? Victimisation (final 'last straw') managers manager has not taken too kindly to my complaint and raised awareness of what's going on in one of their departments and has targeted the 'trouble maker' me. a serious incident of victimisation has recently taken place. but i am covered by a 'protected act' and acted immediately. i put in a grievance about the harrassment and bullying by this particular manager. naturally management have stuck together. so i am just about to put in an appeal. Back to the start again this brings me round to where i started. based on the medical recommendation i think i will have to leave my job immediately i am notified of the appeal decision otherwise i will lose any rights i may have to claim constructive dismissal. i am not sure i want to claim this anyway as i would prefer the matter to go to civil court, where i can completely sue the a... off these people for what has happened to me over the past 18 months. my medical state the complete and utter indignity of having to constantly wear a wig and a cheap one at that as i dont have the money to buy a decent one. how further freakish i look without eyebrows. the constant eye infections because of no eyelashes, or where they were just coming loose and falling into my eye - the constant rubbing. im not so distressed about the rest of the body hair - no on sees any of it. im on medication up to my eyeballs. i have a diagnosed prolapsed disc and whilst of sick couldnt even put my knickers on or use the WC without putting a bucket on it first as i couldnt sit. thankfully my mobility is such that i can get around better, but i walk with a limp now, and still prefer to use the disable WC as they are a little higher. the constant pain in my back, shooting pains and numbness in my left leg is sometimes unbearable. also since being back at work apart from the deterioaration again of my mental state i have the additional indignity of repeated boils on my arse - what the hell is that about? i do hope that there is someone prepared and/or managed to read through this and provide advice or answer my query. Thanks