Can monthly amount to Bailiff be reduced?

[michelefauk]

Hi

 

Am after some advice.

 

We currently have 2 "accounts" with Chandlers Bailiffs for council tax arrears (this goes back years from when my ex-partner lived with me and didnt pay anything, unfortunately all was in my name and I ended up with the debt)

 

We are paying £50 a month on each account, £100 in total, one account is about £600 the other about £400 left to pay. Chandlers made us sign a form when they accepted the payment plan, I understand now it is called a walking Agreement. I signed one, and in my absence my partner signed the other one (although the debt is in my name, not sure how this stands up?)

 

Anyway, we said at the time that £100 a month was too high, but Chandlers refused to budge, saying that we only had so many months to clear the account and that £50 was the minimum they could take. This amount is crippling us, my partner is currently out of work and claiming Job Seekers Allowance (although 6 weeks into the claim they have yet to process it or pay any benefit at all) and I work part time for 10 hours a week, so obviously we have a very limited income at the moment.

 

I have tried to telephone Chandlers to tell them we need to reduce the amount, but they just said that is not possible, now we have signed the Walking Agreement we have to stick to it. Is there anything at all we can do? I dont want to pay nothing at all, just £100 a month is taking all our money and we are left with virtually nothing to feed all 5 of us and pay the mortgage and all other bills. I am terrified of getting on the wrong side of these guys as they are not exactly understanding, is it worth going back to the council to appeal to their better nature or will they just say the debt is now with Chandlers? Help!

[elsinore]

Hi michelefauk.

 

Forget about appealing to the council's better nature, they won't have one.

 

There will be a right way to deal with this. I will ask one of the experts to have look at your problem a.s.a.p. He'll come over as soon as he can.

 

Elsinore

[michelefauk]

thank you so much

[Guest Zooman]

I hope I can be corrected on this but the only options you have I am aware of is;

 

1. Send a budget sheet to the bailiff and a letter explaining you can not afford the amounts you are paying and it is causing hardship with new offer, remember in the mean time you must keep up payments.

 

2. Ask the council to take the debt back it is important that you include the budget sheet and make an offer of payment also tell them how you will pay i.e weekly at the post office. Write to your councils Head of Finance not to the collection department, follow it up with a call 3 days later.

 

3. If 2 fails contact your local councilor and ask him/her to take up your case with your local council, if they are not helpful complain to the political party they rep that your local councilor their rep is not taking up your case.

 

Remember if you miss a payment that they can remove goods and for this reason should be treat as a priority debt.

[Guest Zooman]

note on #1

 

Try something like

 

I am aware from making enquires it is in your discretion to negotiate installment payments directly with me on behalf of your client.

 

I ask your indulgence to reduce the monthly payments from x to x. Because xxxx.

 

I have enclosed my personal budget sheet confirming my position as well as copy correspondence confirming my benefits schedule.

 

 

I also ask if you could give this matter your urgent action, because if you are unable to reduce the payments I have been advised to re-contact the council to formally ask them to take back the debt due to my circumstances.

You will know what you can send as proof and what you need to say.

[chrismc]

Michelefauk

 

Zooman has given you some good advice, but based on my experience I would tackle it another way and see how far we can get to get the bailiffs off your back and withdrawn from the case by the council and as you still have £1000 to pay it is worth a go!!

 

In the situation you are in, and after letting the bailiffs in, unfortunately it does not leave you with a lot of options!! However there are things we can start working on:-

 

First before we advise you to do anything else, we need to know what charges the bailiffs have applied to your account(s) can you give us a breakdown or list of these charges eg WP, Levy, First visit etc etc etc but this need to be done quickly, IF they have applied excessive charges there may be a way of tackiling this at the Councils end, but it has to be done at the highest level not at the recovery level.

 

Assuming the charges are excessive and I would bet they are, then you need to write immediately to the Managing Director or Chief Executive of the Council, hand deliver the letter in person and it needs to be worded correctly, you need to state your circumstances initially and then put in at the bottom the statement

 

I am sure you will be aware, under the National Standards for Enforcement Agents 2002 that fees should be reasonable and not disproportionate to the size of the debt, however, in this case the fees levied on the above accounts are totally disproportionate to the original debt.

 

I am also sure you will be aware there have been recent cases that have been taken back in front of the Magistrates Court over these issues, with the result that the councils have been forbidden to take any further recovery action, or in other words, the debt has been written off

Also after that make the statement that unless you hear from them within 7 days and they take this seriously you will have no alternative but to take the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman. (you cannot do this unless you have given the council a chance to put things right or sort out the problem first - again read my Philips thread)

 

This statement and the wording of your letter will all depend on the fees the bailiffs have applied, if they are reasonable you cannot use this course of action.

Read my thread Philips Bailiffs end to end, you can use my letters, they do have to be worded correctly so you leave them in no doubt that you know what you are talking about.

 

 

Here is some more information for you just in case you need it:-

 

WHAT THINGS ARE THE BAILIFFS ALLOWED TO TAKE?

 

There are some things that the bailiffs are not allowed to take at all; such as goods that are rented or hired. The regulations also say that the following items are exempt and can't be taken:

• "Such tools, books, vehicles and other items of equipment as are necessary for use personally in employment, business or vocation"
  
• "Such clothing, bedding, furniture, household equipment and provisions as are necessary for satisfying basic domestic needs of the person and family".
  
• This list is not very specific so you may find that bailiffs have a different idea of what items are necessary for you to keep and what can be taken. You can complain about what the bailiffs take if you feel the items should have been exempt.

CAN THE BAILIFFS TAKE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT MINE?

The bailiffs can only take goods belonging to you if you are named on the liability order. This means that if the council tax debt is just in your name, the bailiff should not take goods which are owned jointly with someone else. If they want to take goods that belong to someone else (your children, partner, lodgers etc.) explain that the goods do not belong to you. If you can, show a receipt or note as proof. The owner of the goods may have to provide a sworn statement in the form of a "statutory declaration" to say this is the case. They cannot take goods which are rented or hired. This includes goods on hire purchase agreements. Show them a copy of your credit agreement if you can.

 

 

WHAT IF I HIDE THINGS OR GIVE THEM AWAY?

If the bailiffs haven't yet been in, you can hide things or take them somewhere else. If the bailiffs have already been in, you are committing an offence if you remove goods that they have said they will take. You can hide them on your premises but the bailiffs can search for them. However, if the bailiffs have listed exempt goods on a walking possession agreement, the agreement may be invalid as it applies to these goods. You may be able to remove the exempt goods only.

 

Also read this post National debt Helpline it may be of benefit to you.

 

I have to go now but will check back here as soon as I can.

 

Chris

[chrismc]

Michelefauk

 

Some more information which may be of benefit, at least you may have a couple of options, so don't give up yet!!

 

HOW DO I STOP THE BAILIFFS?

 

• You can try to make an arrangement to pay the debt back at a rate that you can afford. You can offer the money directly to the bailiffs, although it is easier to get them to accept your offer if they have never been into your home. Always get a receipt for any money you pay.
  
• Bailiffs cannot send you to prison . If the bailiffs have never been into your home and they will not accept your offer, all they can do is to pass your debt back to the council. It is important to make an arrangement to pay the council, or they may try other ways of recovering the money, such as taking money out of your wages or your benefit.
  
• If the bailiffs refuse your offer it is important to put the money you have offered aside so you can pay it to the council as soon as the debt is passed back to them. Write to the bailiffs and the council telling them you are saving the money up as the bailiffs have refused to take your payments.
  
• If you are on income support, pension credit or job seeker's allowance, some councils have a policy for not using bailiffs and will accept an offer from you or agree to accept direct payments from your benefits. Ask your council if they are willing to take the debt back from the bailiffs so you can pay them directly.
  
• If the council won't help then contact your local councillor and ask them to take it up with the council for you. Explain what hardship you will be in if the bailiffs come to your home and take your belongings. This is the way I would try and tackle this to start with as per my post above.

If it has been a long time since the bailiff came into your home and you have not had any contact with them during this time, the future action they can take against you may be limited.

 

 

Chris

[michelefauk]

Thanks for all the posts which I am in the process of reading.

 

I have to hand 1 of the green Walking Agreement forms, the amounts are as follows:

Council Tax 524.56

Levy Fee £41.00

Walking Possession Fee £11.00

Attendance/removal costs £39.00 Total amount outstanding £615.56

 

The other things I was unsure of was if it was right for my partner to sign one of these forms in my absence? The bailiff came when I was at work and even though the debt is in my name, was happy for my partner to sign the Walking Agreement Form. The house is in his name by the way, and the contents are some mine, some his. Not sure if he should have signed the form? I signed the other one cos I was too scared not to, I was here on my own with my baby and the man was so vile, I was terrified. I did tell him I couldnt afford the £50 he was asking for a month and he just said that was the minimum they could take as they are obliged to clear the account within 8 months. Is this true?

Thanks again for all your replies, it is such a relief to know someone is out there on my side!

[Guest Zooman]

they don't need to get anything signed full stop, they only try to get it as proof that they have been in the house it matters not who signed it.

[Guest Zooman]

BTW those fees are not excessive in the least.

[lee6370]

The charges you have listed seem to be reasonable.

 

Still write to the baliffs and the council as suggested by others, however you may have an escape route. (you'll still have to pay the debt but it should allow you to pay at a more affordable rate)

 

You say the debt is in your name and the house is in your partners, so what you need to do is get your partner to photocopy any proof that the house is in his name, along with as many receipts as you can find relating to goods in your house (that are in your partners name), send these with the letters, letting the baliffs know that the house belongs to your partner, along with all goods in it, it must be written and signed by your partner. Make sure you send copies to the council and baliff and let the baliff know you have sent a copy to the council.

 

Even though they have a walking order they can still only take the items that belong to you and next time do not let the baliffs in, they have no right to enter until you let them in.

[Guest Zooman]

If you do that the bailiff can revisit and he can break in if you do not let him in, in any event this will incur costs. If that happened best case he re-levies worst case he removes goods (yours) both incurring more costs.

 

these charges don't seem to be reasonable they are reasonable:

 

[lee6370]

If you do that the bailiff can revisit and he can break in if you do not let him in, in any event this will incur costs. If that happened best case he re-levies worst case he removes goods (yours) both incurring more costs.

 

these charges don't seem to be reasonable they are reasonable:

 

 

Once you have already let him in then yes he can break in, i meant if i bailiff calls over another debt, don't let them in in the first place.

 

But don't agree with the rest of your post, if the goods don't belong to you they can not take them, if you have receipts proving they belong to someone else, then they can not and will not take them. Where you don't have receipts a letter from the owner, whilst in most cases isn't the best thing in the world in this case it should be enough, given that the house is in someone elses name and they can prove that.

 

Before a bailiff broke in they would also call the police to attend, and the bailiffs know that if you have evidance, receipts, deeds, etc. that will cast enough doubt in the minds of the police offers then they will not let the bailiff take the goods.

[chrismc]

Michelefauk

 

What Zooman says is correct, you cannot use the excessive fee argument, so that avenue is closed. However, they have listed those charges, BUT if you add up the total debt how much over and above that have you been asked to pay?? It may not be of much use to you know as it seems it has gone too far, so the only route I think you can follow now is negotiation with the bailiff and / or council unfortunately.

 

It is true they can only take goods that belong to you and even then not everything, (but they really don't want to do this, it is hassle for them) but the fact is they have already entered your/his house so they can force entry in the future and that will cost you more. The fact is your partner should not have signed anything that was in someone elses name!! But that is easy to say when you are not in the position of being confronted by the thugs!!

 

Call the bailiff company before the next payment is due and see if you can reduce the amount, they may do it for you, but it could depend on the actual bailiff who visited you or the way you have dealt with the past debt with them.

[chrismc]

Michelfauk

 

THE BAILIFFS HAVE ALREADY BEEN INSIDE MY HOME

 

THIS IS MORE SERIOUS. If you have let them in before, and they did a valid levy, then bailiffs have the right to return to your home and if you don't let them in, they are allowed to break in.

• Contact the bailiffs straight away and make an offer to pay the debt in instalments. Show them a copy of your personal budget so they can see you are offering as much as you can afford. You will need to treat this as a priority debt as bailiffs could come back and take any goods they have listed if you don't pay. Get a receipt for any payments you make.
  
• Contact your council and ask them to take the debt back.
  
• Ask your local councillor for help.

This is what we have al. been saying, call them with your income/expenditure statement, prove to them that you cannot afford what they are asking for, if they don't accept it, go and talk to the main man at the council, if they will not help talk to the LGO........you will just have to explore all avenues, when one closes try another one.

 

Chris

[Guest Zooman]

But don't agree with the rest of your post, if the goods don't belong to you they can not take them, if you have receipts proving they belong to someone else, then they can not and will not take them. Where you don't have receipts a letter from the owner, whilst in most cases isn't the best thing in the world in this case it should be enough, given that the house is in someone else's name and they can prove that.

At no point did I say they could remove someone else's goods, but as you must be aware of as I am they can take the goods and sort returns at a latter day if they so wish at the debtors expensive.

 

Before a bailiff broke in they would also call the police to attend, and the bailiffs know that if you have evidence, receipts, deeds, etc. that will cast enough doubt in the minds of the police offers then they will not let the bailiff take the goods.

Only if you where in the house and you refused entry would they phone the police, if the house was empty they could break in and remove goods.

 

Please don't put words in my mouth I never said.

 

This a very serous situation for Michele and she needs to reduce the payments for her family to have money to live on not an excise of knowledge. The only realistic path open to her to avoid removal of goods and to reduce payments is negotiation. Although what you say is true it at no point helps her reduce payments, and may even incur more costs to her if they decide to re-levy.

[lee6370]

Hold on, your twisting what i've said.

 

Read my first post, the first thing i said was write to the bailiffs and the council as has been suggested.

 

What i then said was that if she can prove that the goods do not belong to her and send that proof to the bailiffs and council it will help, in so far as they will be very reluctant to remove the goods. I suggested sending the proof that the goods do not belong to her, in the same letter as her offer of repayment, all she would be doing is showing the bailiffs that not only can she not afford to pay as such as they want but that the goods listed on the walking order arn't hers either.

 

At no time have i suggested that proving the goods arn't yours is the only answer, i know how serious this is and what anyone in this position wants first and foremost to stop the bailiffs taking their goods.

 

The reason anyone pays the bailiffs more than they can afford is fear, and that fear is fueled by ingorance, so knowledge is what is needed.

 

What i have said will help her reduce her payments because it will put her in a position of strengh, and she needs to show the bailiffs she knows her rights and is willing to fight her corner.

[michelefauk]

I didnt want to start an argument , I just wanted some easy to follow advice guys! Thanks anyway, will try and get my head round what's best to do next.

Michele

[lee6370]

Just a slight disagreement, hope all goes well with the bailiffs/council.

[michelefauk]

Just checked my online accounts with Chandlers before making this months payment, and the starting balance on both accounts differs from the Total Amount Outstanding on the Green Walking Possession Forms I signed ie

 

On Account 1) the starting balance online is £671.36 and on my form it says £615.56

 

On Account 2) the starting balance online says £661.80 when on my form it says £612.71

 

Is there a reason for this? ie is there another fee they add on after you have signed the WP Form?

 

 

I have also noticed that although on the WP form it says that they charge £1.00 per transaction for Debit cards, online they have charged differing amounts from £1.90 to £6.17 as transaction fees.

 

The differences in my balances outstanding are therefore quite large, in account 1) their outstanding balance as showing online is £541.56 whereas it should be £487.56 and in account 2) they are showing it as £322.54 whereas I make it £294.71. A difference of £80 odd over the 2 accounts, that is nearly a month's payment!

 

is there any obvious reason for this that I am missing? I want to get my facts straight before I call them tomorrow, they are not the easiest people to deal with and I will find it very daunting if they insist their figures are correct due to charges I should have been aware of being added on.

 

can anyone advise?

 

thanks

 

michele

[becka]

Chandlers charge 5% for card payments - which explains the varying amounts. They also seem to charge a daily % once you've entered into a Walking Possesion order which could explain the increases

 

Thank yourself lucky though that they have charged you the correct fees - they are trying to charge me £250 plus £210 for their initial visit over 2 accounts!

 

You are best to pay them by cheque or try and get their bank details to make direct payment(if you manage to get their bank details could you PM them to me as they appear very reluctant to provide this - I spose it's to encourage card payment)

 

If you do make payment by cheque make sure they get it before the due date and call and confirm receipt as they are very good at denying receipt even when it is sent special/trackable delivery

[michelefauk]

HI

 

Thanks for your reply. I did pluck up courage to phone them this morning, the lady in Accounts said that the original figure I was quoting from the Walking Possession Form didnt include Levy Fee and Walking Possession Fees which had been added on later. These fees were actually included in the breakdown on the form, and I told the lady as much, turns out they have charged me TWICE on both accounts for fees which had already been included. Naughty naughty. She also said that although I should be charged £1 per transaction, their system had charged me the rate for CREDIT CARDS, although I had paid by Debit Card and she refunded that to the account as well. I was very insistent that it was their error, they admitted that it was and that if I hadnt spotted it, then they probably wouldnt have! She was actually pleasant enough , and said she would amend it immediately on their system and put it in writing as well. I asked if I could pay directly to their bank, she said no that wasnt possible and said I could pay by cheque although they dont send out receipts for them, so I think I will continue to use my Debot Card, as least I know they have definately got it!

[sherysmmns]

Hi

 

Fasinating this is the same position my partner and I are in, but have currently stuck to the repayment agreement so no threats to remove items at the moment. I now know to never allow balliffs into my property, it was never my intention to not pay but after what I have been through with Bristow & Sutor they are evil.

We did receive a fee of £255.00 for Van/Removal of Goods that never actually happened as by 7.00 that morning we made the payment of £800.00 that they were demanding.

Unfortunately when we received our breakdown of costs the £255.00 had been deducted from our £800.00 payment we had made to clear the council tax debt. We were originally told by the balliff that if we made the minimum payment of £800.00 we would not incur the cost of the van and that he had a load of premises to visit in our area that day as they had travelled a long distance, staying overnight and returning the next day.

When I queried this with Bristow & Sutor they were horrible and stated that the balliff who said this had no right to make that statement and I asked "but if the van was for more than 1 house did everyone receive this fee of £255 for 1 van?

Further to the previous threads re unreasonable fees do you think we have a case to write to the Executive of our local Council?:-|

 

warm regards