Paying council tax arrears but gone to JBW anyway **Bailiffs on hold**

[JoPebble]

Hi, I hope I put this in the correct subforum out of the many choices.

 

I have a council tax debt with Croydon council from where I lived there in the past. I shouldn't have had to pay council tax but the local job centre lied to me many times saying I could not claim income support. As soon as I moved the new local jobcentre arranged it for me and I now don't have to pay. Even though Croydon council lied to me, there appears to be no way to get this resolved after the case, which leaves me owing this council tax to croydon council.

 

Since September or October last year I have made regular payments to Croydon council every month without fail towards this debt.

 

Today I received a letter from JBW Enforcement agents saying the amount remains outstanding despite their previous letters and visits to my premises. They have not visited my premises and this is the first letter I have had from them. The letter talks about the 6th of April Taking Control of goods act and the fact they will charge me £235 when they visit and suggest I pay the full amount in 7 days.

 

The amount I owe is under £1500 (although croydon council have got the amount so many times in the past and even tried to charge me £2500 until I questioned it and pointed out their mistakes)

I am on ESA and income support

 

I contacted Croydon council and they claim they passed it over to JBW in December. After explaining I had been making the same payment monthly since last year she checked and said that she can see the payments but as no agreement was setup they can send it to JBW and it's all above board. Her tone became nasty at this point and she made no offer of setting up an agreement or helping in any way.

 

Stress and anxiety effect me really bad and the thought of contacting a nasty debt collector means I probably won't do it.

 

Am I really not able to do anything about this as the Croydon council lady implied?

 

Thanks for being here Consumer action group!

[renegadeimp]

Get in touch with a manager or ceo of your coincil. Ignore the council phone reps.

[JoPebble]

Can you give me a rough idea as to what I should say as to why I am contacting them rather than the call centre? Worried that if I present it the same way they will say the same as those on the phone, ie there is a liability order and no agreement with them.

 

Thanks for the advice

[renegadeimp]

Tell them that the silly muppets in the call centre didnt give you an adequate response and you want to know why it has been passed to bailiffs when you are making clear payments to the debt regularly and ontime. The fact that they have sent the debt to the bailiffs ( was their even a LO for this), and the bailiff has charged you a small fortune, means that you will not be able to continue paying the arrears off.

 

Infact, their actions have contributed to you not being able to meet the payments when before you had no problem.

[tomtubby]

Jo

 

It would seem from your post that you are vulnerable (as you are in receipt of ESA). This is vitally important and JBW NEED to know, they do not have a crystal ball and will be relying upon YOU to make them aware of this important information.

 

Croydon Councils stance is appalling and I would expect that this is mainly due to the fact that they very likely use a back office call centre.

 

I am sorry but in order to provide an adequate response to you it will be necessary to ask a few questions.

 

Can you call the council in the morning to ask for the precise amount of the Liability Order

 

Next, the council should be able to tell you what fees have been charged to the account by way of bailiff fees. Can you post back with details.

 

How much have you been paying to Croydon Council each month?

 

With regards to the property where you live; is the property privately owned, privately rented or local authority owned?

 

Are you single or married and do you have any children living at the property. If so, what ages are they?

 

Do you have a car and if so, is it outside of your property (in which case it is at risk of being seized).

 

Is the vehicle subject to finance or hire purchase?

 

Roughly how much is it worth (ONLY provide a figure on the forum if the vehicle is LESS than approx £1,500)

 

You are in receipt of ESA. This would indicate that you are 'vulnerable'. Would you be able to provide proof of your illness to JBW Group if necessary (ie; by way of a doctors letter etc)

 

 

PS: If could answer the above it would really assist..and please...try not to worry.

[JoPebble]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Tom, there are about 4 or 5 liability orders for different years at that address and I would have to get those details as I can't find the paperwork. I shall try and mentally prepare myself to call them again tomorrow.

 

I have been paying Croydon council £30 every month using a letter they sent me with a barcode which I am attaching

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]50105[/ATTACH]

 

My current property is rented through a housing association, with housing benefit. I lost everything when I was made redundant and suffered from depression and thus bounced between different mental health teams. When my previous privately rented property was sold by the landlord, Croydon council decided I wasn't vulnerable enough for them to consider helping re-home me, despite all the letters from the mental health teams, so I no longer live in Croydon.

 

I am single, not married and have no kids. I am socially awkward and rarely go out due to anxiety and depression so I am likely to stay single too. The mental health teams think I have asbergers but apparently there is no funding to get a proper diagnosis although autism scale tests from when I was diagnosed with ADHD show it is highly likely.

 

I don't own a car.

 

As I am under CMHT in my new borough I probably have a letter or two somewhere (I'm highly disorganised) that they send after I see them and also probably from similar teams in Croydon when I was there. I'm not sure what effect these will have with JBW or Croydon council considering the lack of interest and pain the council put me through when I was becoming homeless.

 

It takes me a lot of effort to get in to action and deal with things and I thought I had resolved this issue by making those regular payments. Now my head is all over the place again so I thank you for your help with this

[Conniff]

It's not a good idea to phone unless you can record the call. You should also send them a subject access request so you get info on your time at that address and can them prepare to claim back the tax you shouldn't have been paying to start with.

 

 

SAR

[tomtubby]

Jo,

 

Please try not to worry. Thank you for answering the questions in such a clear way. From what you have written it is CLEAR that you are classed as vulnerable. I will post back in the morning to advise further.

[JoPebble]

Thanks once again for the help.

 

I have receive a private message but unable to respond due to the following error:

 

Errors

The following errors occurred with your submission

You have reached your stored private message quota and cannot send any further messages until space has been created.

 

I deleted the one message in my inbox but still get the error. Has anyone any idea as to what I can do to be able to reply?

[ploddertom]

It was from myself as I have a contact within JBW. As Site Team you should have been able to read & reply to my message. To move forward I would need your phone number, you could send by email to ploddertom(at)gmail.com - replace (at) with @.

[JoPebble]

Email sent, thanks Ploddetom!

[ploddertom]

Reply sent.

 

For everyone else the OP is certainly classed as vulnerable and JBW are being approached directly to get this sorted.

[brassnecked]

Great stuff PT

[ploddertom]

This matter is now on hold with JBW, allowing the OP to submit the needed proof of vulnerability. Many thanks to TT for stepping in.

[JoPebble]

Thanks for everyone's advice and help. As ploddertom said above, this is on hold and I will be trying to locate the paperwork I think is relevant this weekend.

 

Thank you all for being here, you are life savers!

[tomtubby]

I was glad to help (and once again this case proves the need to ensure that contact is made with the enforcement agent at an early stage to avoid a personal visit.

 

I cannot stress the need for communication.

 

"Jo" have a good weekend xx

[JoPebble]

After an initial contact with the person helping me it was left in their hands but I have not been able to get hold of them for three weeks now. I don't think it was intentional but not sure what to do. It's about this time of of month I usually make a payment to the council, so I guess I should still make a payment to them and hope JBW don't ask for a payment too.

 

I am also thinking of asking a friend to write a letter to the council for me with some of the earlier advice. I still don't think it should have gone to JBW in the first place.

[tomtubby]

I have emailed you....