Discussion on pay bailiff or council direct and fees etc

[outlawla]

Yes, there is some responsibility on the council. My issue is the continuous use of the phrase "100 percent responsible" which is not just misleading, it is plain wrong. Bailiffs carry responsibility for their actions.......

 

 

See what you make of this:

 

Particularly the "Who is responsible for the actions of the bailiff" bit...

[brassnecked]

See what you make of this:

 

Particularly the "Who is responsible for the actions of the bailiff" bit...

Ouch!!!!! I always understood that a contractor who messed up shared liability with the hirer, jointly and severally, so the council would be liable for any fraud by a bailiff, How can a council divest themselves of this liability as Jamberson says they can?

[i hate bailiffs]

See what you make of this:

 

Particularly the "Who is responsible for the actions of the bailiff" bit...

 

Who is responsible for the actions of the bailiff?

 

The answer to this is simple. It is the local authority.

 

i have made it easy for him as i expect he is still reading from last night :lol:

[sequenci]

and what i am saying old council tax debt comes AFTER mortgage /rent electric and gas and food

 

hope that makes sence:-)

 

It should be treated at the same time really. Obviously keeping a roof over your heard is very important too! As is eating

 

I've heard that some councils are starting to go down the attachment of earnings route a lot more, if people have a couple of liability orders they can be particularly harsh in their effect.

[brassnecked]

It should be treated at the same time really. Obviously keeping a roof over your heard is very important too! As is eating

 

I've heard that some councils are starting to go down the attachment of earnings route a lot more, if people have a couple of liability orders they can be particularly harsh in their effect.

Especially if the person gained the arrears whilst waiting for Council Tax benefit to be calculated when they signed on after losing their job, and have just got a new one after a year on JSA.

[sequenci]

Especially if the person gained the arrears whilst waiting for Council Tax benefit to be calculated when they signed on after losing their job, and have just got a new one after a year on JSA.

 

The whole process is a joke if you ask me. In my line of work we get more grief about council tax than ANY other type of debt going.

[brassnecked]

The whole process is a joke if you ask me. In my line of work we get more grief about council tax than ANY other type of debt going.

 

Exactly, as a local community councillor, I have helped residents in my ward to deal with council tax, the problem lies in the automated system, that allows a Liability order to be obtained often for a pittance, below the allowed threshold, and the case sent out to bailiffs, BEFORE the benefit is calculated, awarded , and backdated to clear the arrears, and zero the account.

 

As the Lo is in place and costs for obtaining the wrongful, yes wrongful LO; as account should be on hold due to claim processing, and arrears are paper only, say £100 are applied, along with bailiff fees, debtor has been sorely wronged, but they will be pursued with full vigour for the court fee and bailiff charges.

 

This is a real issue where there is Crapquita stitch up in a council

Edited September 22, 2012 by brassnecked

[sequenci]

Are you in the Midlands? We have Capita here. Nightmare.

[Jamberson]

Who is responsible for the actions of the bailiff?

 

The answer to this is simple. It is the local authority.

 

If you seriously think bailiffs have no responsibility for their actions, you are wrong once again. It is this type of nonsense which is making this forum unfit for purpose. There is joint liability for some areas and sole liability on the bailiff for others, particularly criminal offences such as assault.

[mellymoo74]

Are you in the Midlands? We have Capita here. Nightmare.

 

Yep its Capita and Equita I have been dealing with. little things like passing the debt over to the bailiffs a week before agreed paydate despite having sicknotes and copies of my redundancy letter and being told they wouldnt its why im trying to get a raft of complaints together to take back to the LGO and pass onto the media

[wonkeydonkey]

If you seriously think bailiffs have no responsibility for their actions, you are wrong once again. It is this type of nonsense which is making this forum unfit for purpose. There is joint liability for some areas and sole liability on the bailiff for others, particularly criminal offences such as assault.

 

...let us look upon bailiffs as the foot soldiers and the LA as the Generals ....Generals issues orders to the foot soldier and the when the battle plan goes wrong because the foot soldiers didn't understand the given order..... it is the GENERALS who would face the Court Martial.

 

When it comes to CT and NNDR they are not classed as 'criminal offences'and that imho, is where you must learn to differentiate as opposed to applying your interpretation of the rules to every category to which a bailiff may be employed.

 

If it is your considered opinion the forum offers nonsense and appears 'unfit for purpose' then all I can say is...please shut the door quietly when you leave

 

Wd

[mellymoo74]

...let us look upon bailiffs as the foot soldiers and the LA as the Generals ....Generals issues orders to the foot soldier and the when the battle plan goes wrong because the foot soldiers didn't understand the given order..... it is the GENERALS who would face the Court Martial.

 

When it comes to CT and NNDR they are not classed as 'criminal offences'and that imho, is where you must learn to differentiate as opposed to applying your interpretation of the rules to every category to which a bailiff may be employed.

 

If it is your considered opinion the forum offers nonsense and appears 'unfit for purpose' then all I can say is...please shut the door quietly when you leave

 

Wd

 

Especially when people are coming back on the forum and passing on success stories! Clearly this place works we may not all agree on the best way forward but I dont think getting petulant and taking up peoples threads with arguments about a single point is the way forward.

[i hate bailiffs]

Then you will continue to give out bad, dangerous advice.

 

As for the comment "Advice can only be offered based on experience (unless your a legal expert)" this is logical nonsense. You give advice based on knowledge of the facts, not something which happened to you. Every situation is different and you can only predict the outcome on the basis of knowledge of the sytem. It may surprise you to learn that some people on here do actually have legal expertise. Leave the advice to them.

 

how would you like this served up???

 

all your words not mine:lol::lol::lol:

[mellymoo74]

Hi I hate bailiffs, that was me lol think he was trying to provoke an argument

[brassnecked]

We can only give OPTIONS where an OP thought there were none, it is up to them shich strategy is suitable, if they have no car and bailiff cannot get a levy, then there is less risk to them with the pay council plus legit fees option

It is their choice we can advise what can happen, what hads worked, and implications, then it is up to OP

[Leakie]

Guys we are not helping the OP with this argument,

I think we should get back to the OP'S PROBLEM

 

 

as was sugested before may be we should start a new tread for the pro's and con's for paying the council direct.

 

leakie

[brassnecked]

Guys we are not helping the OP with this argument,

I think we should get back to the OP'S PROBLEM

 

 

as was sugested before may be we should start a new tread for the pro's and con's for paying the council direct.

 

leakie

 

Definitely Leakie.

 

But If Op pays council, plus visit fees and prevents a levy, bailiff can call as many times as they like, add as many attending to remove, van fees, admin fees, call the Kraken fees, head h fees as they like, none will be payable without a valid levy, apart from £42.50 for the first and second visits.

 

If the bailff gets a valid levy then the game changes to challenge any unlawful or excessive fees, but again there is no legal compulsion to deal with the bailiff.

[IdaInFife]

I am closing this thread for a bit and seperate the ops query and the discussion and put up a discussion thread

[IdaInFife]

I have now removed the ops query top a thread of its own and reopened this as a discussion

 

I have found this thread very interesting and thought provoking and it does show you why CAG is here.

 

We are all here for the same reason so please bear this in mind.

 

There are many regular and knowledgeable caggers on bailiff matters and not everyone can be 100% spot on each time and just shows us that we do have different avenues and strategies that can be used and how different statues and laws can be interpreted differently.

 

Some posts have been very close to the bone, so please refrain from trying to make your posts personal against another user, and also trying to inflame others will not be tolerated. We are all adults and I for 1 of many would like this thread to continue on the path it was meant to be maintained.

 

Ida x

[outlawla]

I think the following considerations are crucial in beginning to understand whether or not bailiffs can lawfully continue enforcement (i.e. levy goods) for their fees alone.

 

The first consideration key to an understanding is:

 

• Private bailiff fees do not exist in the collection of council tax arrears (all fees and charges are the council's fees in law, both those that are prescribed and those that are simply stated as being "reasonable" in the legislation).
  

Consider then, a scenario where council tax debt has been settled directly with the council. The debtor has paid all outstanding monies owed, less the council's statutory fees.

 

With regards to whether the bailiff is then lawfully allowed to levy for the "COUNCIL'S" fees alone, some of the questions have to be:

 

 

1) Can and do councils deduct their own statutory fees (for themselves) from monies received directly from the debtor?

This, if enforcement is outsourced, I should think would be unlawful, because NO employee of the council has been involved in enforcing the debt.

 

 

 

2) In a scenario where the bailiff firm collects all debt including statutory fees, do bailiff firms forward all payment to the authority, including fees?

This apparently depends on the local authority and what's detailed in the Service Level Agreement between itself and the Bailiff contractor.

 

 

For example, Manchester City Council states this:

 

All fees associated with the bailiff action are payable by the debtor first and are retained by the bailiff companies as payment for their work before they start collecting the Council’s debt. The Council does not make any payments to bailiff companies for bailiff work – if they do not succeed in collecting the debts, together with their associated costs, then they do not get paid.

 

 

On the other hand North East Lincolnshire Council states:

 

 

Before a payment is taken by North East Lincolnshire Council the amount of fees will be debited to the debtors account. As soon as payment has cleared Rossendales will be informed and will then issue an invoice to North East Lincolnshire Council for the fees.

 

 

 

From the above information it appears almost conclusive that the bailiff firm is not required to remit enforcement fees to MCC. However, the bailiff firm is most probably required to invoice the council for the fees, if only for VAT purposes.

 

It is unclear whether the bailiff firm is required to remit enforcement fees to NELC. Further details in the SLA indicate that the above quoted text may be in connection with payments made to the council direct by the debtor. The relevant sections are 3.27 onwards if you fancy attempting to untangle the meaning.

 

The relatively few clues obtained from the SLA's of MCC and NELC are insufficient in themselves to enable one to determine whether or not a bailiff in these circumstances can lawfully levy for fees alone. However, in the case of Manchester City Council, it is almost certain that fees collected by bailiffs are never remitted to the council, indicating that the bailiff does not collect fees on behalf of the authority. You could probably then assume that the bailiff would not be permitted to continue enforcing payment on the strength of the council's liability order.

 

However, depending on how you interpret North East Lincolnshire Council's SLA, the fee element, may or may not be remitted along with original council tax debt.

 

If remitted to the council, it could be considered that the bailiff has not only collected the debt on behalf of the council, but also its statutory fees, which upon invoicing the council once funds have cleared will effectively be the bailiffs remuneration. The importance of this I would think is the council has taken payment of its own statutory fees and distributed them on being invoiced by the contractor.

 

In such a system where "fees will be debited to the debtors account", then it may be possible that the bailiff could levy for the "COUNCIL'S FEES" alone, owing to debt still outstanding on the liability order.

Edited September 24, 2012 by outlawla

[brassnecked]

:@ outlawla "In such a system where "fees will be debited to the debtors account", then it may be possible that the bailiff could levy for the "COUNCIL'S FEES" alone, owing to debt still outstanding on the liability order."

 

I think that is so, therefore the key is in each councils SLA with their appointed bailiffs.

[outlawla]

It is brassnecked, but like I said its unclear (to me anyway) whether monies with respect the council's fees are remitted. The relevant parts of the SLA are from 3.27 onwards. I can't decipher it though, its ambiguous.

[mellymoo74]

We know from the foi bcc and Equita don't have a sla I'm operating as a test case

[brassnecked]

It is brassnecked, but like I said its unclear (to me anyway) whether monies with respect the council's fees are remitted. The relevant parts of the SLA are from 3.27 onwards. I can't decipher it though, its ambiguous.

 

I will take a look in the morning at the SLA, i am up at stupid o'clock so am off now

[mellymoo74]

They will Invoice the council for fees hmmm nothing about whether a new lo would be required it isn't part of the original debt though...