bailiff has overcharged

[bigphilducati]

Hi All,

 

Total newby here, so apologies in advance if I've done this wrong, no doubt you will put me straight.

A bailiff from Jacobs visited my home on three occassions to recover outstanding council tax, we had tried to pay at the council offices on earlier occasions but were told it had to be paid to the bailiffs,(this was before Jacobs got involved) each visit incurred a £30 fee plus a walking possession order on our car and a van fee of £110, they have never entered and nothing has been signed.

 

I had read up on various forums about the fees and his powers and when he came on the third occasion pointed out a few facts, in the mean time we had been to the council and despite their reluctance to accept it we paid the outstanding balance (£319 grim christmas ahead) and so gave the bailiff a letter telling him this, he was less than pleased, insisted that the fees were paid in full within seven days.

I have written to the council to complain and also asked the bailiff company to give me a breakdown of their fees, the council have replied defending the bailiffs (as expected) and stated that they had just rounded of to the nearest pound, lol, waffled on about us defaulting on an agreement with Jacobs? and saying as a good will gesture they would drop a £60 waiting time fee? the bailiffs replied without giving a break down but demanding payment in seven days.

 

That's where I am at the moment.

 

As read on these forums, they and with council support have committed fraud, am I correct?, I'm sure someone will advise, I am considering an N1 complaint to the court and hopefully giving them a bit of a headache, again has anyone done this successfully? and can give some guidance.

 

Thank you in advance for any help you may give, I'm up for a battle at the moment to try and stop bailiffs running around like the "wild west"and flouting rules to line their pockets at poor peoples expense, it's not about the money (although it would be useful) it's about the principal.

 

Cheers Phil

Edited December 17, 2010 by bigphilducati
spelling error

[fork-it]

The law prescribing bailiffs fees for collecting unpaid council tax is the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 and provides £24.50 for a first visit.

 

If a bailiff defrauds you with his fees, he commits an arrestable offence under Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006. It is called fraud by false representation. The law doesn’t provide for bailiffs to charge you a "van fee" or charge you "waiting time", he is just playing you around.

 

Dont bother talking to the bailiffs, The council is responsible for them. Just ask the council to comply with the above regulation, and if they fail tio do so then ask the Parliamentary Ombudsman to Intervene.

 

If you did not receive a final demand or a reminder by post at your current address before they made the application to a magistrate for a Liability order, you can ask the council to roll the case back to pre-enforcement stage.

 

The law is Section 33(3) and 34(1) of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/613/regulation/33/made

 

Contact the council and ask them to comply with Regulation 33(3) and 34(1), but if they are unwilling to do so, then you have a right to ask the Local Government Ombudsman to intervene. You can even ask for compensation, the award of this type of non-compliance by a council is typically about £100 per instance. Awards can be more if you have already received a bailiff or paid a sum of money to one.

[bigphilducati]

Thank you Fork it for your swift reply

 

I have found out about the relevant laws and such like, due to our finanacial situation we had let slip the reminder and do not dispute what we have to pay, if the bailiff who came to the door was above board there would be no reason to object.

 

I am sure the council are in league with the bailiffs and have naturally sided with them making excuses on their behalf, so I do not have any faith in making any further representation to them, (am I legally obliged to?) hopefully with more time others will share their experiences with me and I can pursue a course of action.

 

Please don't think I'm ungrateful for the information you have given at this early stage, I know the bailiff was swinging the lead, but I want to make the bailiff and his company realise that there are repercussions to his fraudulant actions, I do wish that there was more control over these people, and I'm sure many will agree.

 

Cheers Phil

[fork-it]

making any further representation to them, (am I legally obliged to?)

 

Your obligation is to the authority, there is no law saying you have to do business with a company unless a contract between you exists.

 

If the authority does not cooperate with your enquiries, then you can have the Local Government Ombudsman intervene.

[Tingy]

If you really want to get back at the bailiffs send a pre-action letter to the CEO of the Council with a copy to the bailiffs asking for the fees to be revised to what is lawful otherwise you will send An N1 without firther notification. Give them a reasonable time limit to reply (maybe 14 calendar days (= 2 weeks working days allowing two days either way in the post). Make it clear you must receive their response within this time, so they need to send their response within 10 days of receipt. The phrase for the CEO is the council are vicariously liable for the bailiffs' conduct.

[bigphilducati]

Hi Tingy,

 

Thanks for your input, I am already thinking along the lines of the N1, it was suggested to me before I posted the thread, what I want to know is about the process and if any one has gone through it, as I've said it's more about the principal and I want to give them food for thought not a chance to revise their charges, but do I have to do this as a matter of course or can I just send in the N1 to give them a shock!

 

Cheers Phil

[Tingy]

You can just send in the N1. If it's totally official though, don't you have to pay £35 to have it stamped by the court - not 100% sure but can easily find out for you. If I haven't posted by tonight pm me reminding me, or just google it yourself. It will be on HM Courts website.

 

If it does have to be stamped you can always send it unstamped and hope they don't notice or state it is what you have prepared and are waiting till the weather improves to take it to the court.

[ploddertom]

If you go straight ahead with the N1 you are likely to fail. Like anyone who owes you money you must give them chance to pay first. Do you know exactly how much they owe you? Have you received the breakdown of charges the Bailiff has made, do they appear correct, do the dates match up. If you go ahead now the Bailiff will win and you will have to pay their costs.

 

PT

[Tingy]

If you go straight ahead with the N1 you are likely to fail. Like anyone who owes you money you must give them chance to pay first. Do you know exactly how much they owe you? Have you received the breakdown of charges the Bailiff has made, do they appear correct, do the dates match up. If you go ahead now the Bailiff will win and you will have to pay their costs.

 

PT

 

Hence my suggestion of the notice before action (I think there's a template in the library, otherwise just shout - I sent one last week!). Can you work out the fees, or set down here step by step exactly what the bailiffs did, then we can work them out. In the pre-action letter you can then specify unless charges are changed to £x then further action will be taken without notice. Then whack in the N1

[bigphilducati]

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the delay I've been away from my PC since Friday, appreciate your replies, I don't have the details with me that the bailiff left, I will list them over this weekend when I have them together.

The only response I got from the bailiff was a demand for payment when I asked for a breakdown, it was the council that explained the fees, is that right? I don't think so.

Accept what you say about giving them the chance to put things right, however I haven't paid their fees only what was outstanding, is the fact that they want to charge ecessive fees enough to proceed, I feel all they will do when they realise that I am making a stand is to re adjust the fees and hope that that will be the end of it without any comeback, and if they do does that stop me from taking action?

 

Cheers Phil

[ploddertom]

If you haven't already done it you need to demand a breakdown of their fees in writing - see some of the other threads as to what to put - this commoits them and can make it more awkward for them to deny it.

 

PT

[bigphilducati]

Thanks Ploddertom

 

I had already requested a breakdown, but they did not give one when they replied, maybe they are wise to this, it was the council who explained the charges? has anyone else had similiar avoiding tactics from Jacobs? they only requested a total amount payable within seven days, which has now passed, whats the likelyhood of them trying to collect or taking me to court, it might be worth airing it in court, again they may be wise to that and avoid that course of action, it's all bully boy tactics trying to intimidate the uninformed and I'm sure many pay up fearing higher costs, they should call their bluff!

[ploddertom]

Did you ask for it in writing and did you send by a trackable means. Seems amazing the amount of post that goes missing to Bailiff companies. I'm afraid you will have to write again, here's an example of what I referred to earlier - use and adapt as you see fit. Send both by email and hard copy in the post sent by Signed For. Problem with the time of year is how long it may take to get a reply.

 

"From:

My Name

My Address

 

To:

Acme Bailiff Co

Bailiff House

 

Ref: Account No: 123456

 

Dear Sir

 

With reference to the above account, Can you please provide me with a breakdown of the charges.

 

This includes:

a - the time & date of any Bailiff action that incurred a Fee.

b - the reason for the fee.

c - the name(s) of the Bailiff(s) that attended on each occasion a Fee was charged.

d - the name(s) of the Court(s) the Bailiff(s) was/were Certificated at.

e - the date of the Certification.

 

This is not a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act S7 1998 so does not incur a fee of £10. You are obliged to provide this information.

 

I require this information within 14 days.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Ripped off customer"

 

Are you aware that when the Bailiff comes you can ask him for the authorisation from the Creditor (Council) to collect this alleged debt - this is not a copy of the Liability Order, his Bailiff Company ID & his Certification from the appointed County Court which allows him to collect this alleged debt. Have you also checked the online register to see if his Certification is valid and if so is his employer listed as that of the Company he works for, if blank he may be self employed and if so you need to ask the Council if they allow their contractor to sub-contract - many do not.

 

PT

[bigphilducati]

Hi

 

No I did not send the breakdown request by a trackable means, I will use your template and ask again, they received my letter because they sent a reply?

 

While the bailiff was at my door I asked to see authorisation from the council and he told me he didn't have to show it, he said he'd been in his job for 6 years and knew what he was doing, I'm sure he did! , at this point I told him he was whistling in the wind and shut the door on him.

 

I carried out an online search and checked the he was certified and it showed that he works for Jacobs and was registered , I had read about uncertified debt collectors, it was the first thing I did.

 

I'll be writing to them again and stating some of the acts that you guys have listed for me and gauge their reaction, I'll keep you posted.

Edited December 25, 2010 by bigphilducati
spelling

[Tingy]

I think the only way you're going to force compliance is to send an SAR to the bailiffs - there's a template one in the library and I have one adapted purely for bailiffs if the one in the library is not. It is really interesting for me as I am going through a virtually identical issue alongside you. The only difference is that I actually paid the excessive bailiffs fees back on 2007-08 and it's confusing as it covers 2 lots of domestic council tax and 1 lot of non domestic business rates. Trying to get an accurate breakdown of fees against each separate account is virtually impossible. I even had a letter from them last week saying I hadn't enclosed the payment for the SAR. I know I did, but how do you prove it - they haven't cashed the postal order. I also have him recorded on Truecall stating the law in Wales is different to the law in England which it isn't. Coincidentally their letter dropped through my letterbox on Day 40 of their 40 days in which to comply.

 

I have resent the request, but have videoed me in the post office getting the postal order and showing it being put in the envelope and sent special delivery (you may want to bear this little trick in mind!) to the bailiffs, so I now have undisputable proof payment was sent to them and I have sent a very detailed breakdown. While you talk about charging of excessive fees, did they actually come to your house? The reason I ask is that they claim with me they attended twice and THEY have a record of me phoning them each time within 30 minutes of them calling to talk about this. However, they don't have recordings of the telephone conversations and I know they didn't happen as I wouldn't have been here. It will be interesting to see what comes back.

 

I phoned the data controller at the council and told her the situation - she wasn't very happy that I'd recorded everything, but as I pointed out if they didn't try and deceive anyone, recordings of phone calls would be a wase of time.

 

I'm now happy to wait the 40 days again and see what they send back this time, then will decide the next move forward. I will in the meantime send a pre action letter to the council stating that if a satisfactory response is not received I will be pursuing them at some stage without further notice.

 

Keep me posted on this (and so too will I keep you up to date) as it seems a very very similar situation.

 

Do not pay anything at all to the bailiffs until you have a full breakdown of their fees and you can confirm all are legitimate. You must have the right to know what you are paying for before you pay for it, though I couldn't quote the law where this is stated.

[bigphilducati]

Hi Tingy

 

Thanks for your input, looks like we'll go through this one together.

 

Ploddertom has made the comment in one of his replies that he was not making a subject access request and would not be paying a fee, so what compels them to answer your request? I feel by them not engaging in correspondance that they will avoid the issue, but I suppose if they don't reply within a given time I can proceed with further action.

 

The bailiff did call three times and each time someone was in, each time he came he added 30.00 to the total.

 

If you record a conversation are you duty bound to tell them beforehand?

 

All future correspodence will be by recorded post.

 

Has anyone else gone through this process? I want to be sure that if I engage in a course of action that there will be a good chance success.

[fork-it]

so what compels them to answer your request?

 

Section 3 of the Fraud Act 2006.

 

If you record a conversation are you duty bound to tell them beforehand?

 

You are not a business so you dont have tell them calls are recorded or monitored for staff training purposes.

 

All future correspodence will be by recorded post.

 

Dont use recorded, its an opportunity for the bailif to refuse to sign and prove service is not been properly effected. Just ask for a Certificate of Posting at the Post Office and let Section 7 of the Interpetation Act do the rest.

[Tingy]

Hi Tingy

 

Thanks for your input, looks like we'll go through this one together.

 

Ploddertom has made the comment in one of his replies that he was not making a subject access request and would not be paying a fee, so what compels them to answer your request? I feel by them not engaging in correspondance that they will avoid the issue, but I suppose if they don't reply within a given time I can proceed with further action. I've begged to differ on this one and sent the fee (twice now, but second time got it videoed in the post office being placed in the envelope and taken by the post mistress). If they don't comply with an SAR you can respond IN FULL to your SAR you can force enforcement so they have no choice.

 

The bailiff did call three times and each time someone was in, each time he came he added 30.00 to the total. Illegal straight away. Quite clear - £24.50 for visit 1, £18.00 for visit two. No more charges for visiting, though charges there for levying etc....

 

If you record a conversation are you duty bound to tell them beforehand? No. I have a Truecall and it explains the law in detail in their booklet. As long as it's a personal line you don't have to tell them and it can be used as evidence.

 

All future correspodence will be by recorded post. Maybe worth it for an SAR request, otherwise all you need for court is Proof of Delivery. I guess you, like me, are stuck if they don't reply as you cannot get the information you require. That's why I forked out recorded, but it's very expensive.

 

Has anyone else gone through this process? I want to be sure that if I engage in a course of action that there will be a good chance success. There has to be a good chance of success. If they've acted unlawfully they and the council can be held to account for it. Believe you me, if you could hear my council talking to me they are being extremely cautious! They know something is wrong. The bailiffs are still trying to lie their way out of things, but slowly but surely we pin them down.

[bigphilducati]

Hi

 

The irony of the charges is that they are listed on the back of the sheet that the bailiff left, he's duty bound to leave them with you, and yet they are bold enough to charge excessive fees when they have given you a copy of the act which prescribes the fees.

 

I told them in my letter that I was only prepared to pay 42.50, their reply was to say that they wanted 144.00 in seven days, is this enough to pin them down?

 

Cheers Phil

[Tingy]

As you don't dispute for one moment the fact that you owe the bailiffs something, I would be inclined to send a payment of £42.50 to which they are definitely entitled for making two visits to your property along the lines of:

 

Dear Sir / Madam,

 

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

 

Your Ref: abc123

 

Please find enclosed a cheque / Postal Order made payable to your company for £42.50. Having sought legal advice, and in the absence of any detailed breakdown of your charges as requested in my letter dated dd/mm/yyyy I am paying what I believe to be the full legal amount you can charge me for your work.

 

Please note that if you cash this postal order it will act as confirmation that you are accepting this as full and final settlement of any and all monies outstanding to your company. If it is your belief that I owe more than this, please return this postal order along with a full and detailed breakdown of all fees incurred, the date on which they were incurred, the reason why they were incurred and a reference to the relevant point of law that states you are allowed to charge this fee.

 

I trust that this is satisfactory and that this will conclude all business I have with you.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[seanamarts]

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tingy you forgot to mention that kisses are optional

[Tingy]

Wazzock! :lol::lol:

[str8talkinbailiff]

Come on people! Do it right if your complaining about it not be done properly, double standards are just not accetable the bailiff has his hands tied and plays as close to the line as possible. So for you to complain and make a big issue ot of him being wrong, then yourself doing the same thing is despicable.

 

"If it does have to be stamped you can always send it unstamped and hope they don't notice or state it is what you have prepared and are waiting till the weather improves to take it to the court"

 

18th December 2010 10:33

TINGY

 

This makes you worse than what you are complaining about !!!!

 

EITHER PLAY BY THE RULES OR PLAY DIRTY BACK ! JUST DONT BAT FOR BOTH SIDES WHAT SORT OF PERSON ARE YOU? CALLING A BAILIFF WORSE THAN RUBBISH THEN DOING IT YOURSELF !!!

[Tingy]

Come on people! Do it right if your complaining about it not be done properly, double standards are just not accetable the bailiff has his hands tied and plays as close to the line as possible. So for you to complain and make a big issue ot of him being wrong, then yourself doing the same thing is despicable.

 

18th December 2010 10:33

TINGY

 

This makes you worse than what you are complaining about !!!!

 

EITHER PLAY BY THE RULES OR PLAY DIRTY BACK ! JUST DONT BAT FOR BOTH SIDES WHAT SORT OF PERSON ARE YOU? CALLING A BAILIFF WORSE THAN RUBBISH THEN DOING IT YOURSELF !!!

 

Hmmm - difficult to know where to start with this one. I don't think I've ever read such a misguided, inaccurate load of drivel during all my time on this site. You talk about bailiffs "playing" close to the line. It's not a game so they're not playing, they're wrecking peoples' lives. They're not close to the line, they're breaking the law.

 

So the law has been broken and we go about remedying the situation correctly and are accused of being as bad as them. Your reasoning is bizarre to say the least. If as your name suggests you are a bailiff, your comments only serve to reinforce the widely held, and often accurate belief, that many bailiffs are very unpleasant liars who will stoop to unbelievable depths to bully people (often vulnerable people) into paying what they cannot afford. Also if all bailiffs hold the same attitude as you, I honestly don't see the situation improving.

 

If you are a bailiff then yes, you have a job to do which is not going to make you the most popular of people with your clientelle. However, that does not make you above the law and able to do what you want, and it most certainly doesn't make anyone who complains about your unlawful activity "worse than what you are complaining about" as you yourself put it.

 

Perhaps you can point out exactly where you consider I'm not playing by the rules or trying to bat for both sides. I fear your command of the English language is somewhat limited. If you are a bailiff and you behave as many of the others, I hope you too have to face the law and justify your behaviour at some point.

 

Absolute inane drivel which to be honest doesn't really warrant my time giving it any credit by responding to it, but I've nothing planned this morning so there's no harm in it.

 

I know capital letters means shouting on the computer, but honestly you don't need to use upper case all the time - the computer doesn't actually shout it at me, I just read it along with the rest of the misguided waffle that you have posted. Oh, and by the way, if you're going to use English as your medium through which you communicate on here, please learn to use conventional typing methods and learn when a space bar should be used. Or just maybe you don't know? It wouldn't surprise me as from your post you don't appear to know very much at all.

[seanamarts]

Tingy you will learn on here that these type of trolls pop in from time to time to try and give out their version of expert advise but they are merely here because they are bored and going by the time he came on here he probably couldnt sleep or used to being up at that time stalking his next prey and as its the holidays he cant , poor thing.