No NTO recieved, letter from bailiff

[Lolagrace84]

Apologies if this should be elsewhere or anything, I'm new here. Hoping someone can help me.

 

The other day I recieved a letter through the post from a company called excel saying I owed 157 pound for an unpaid parking fine for Swansea Council. I knew nothing about this, haven't had the ticket or a Notice to Owner letter.

 

I understand I can fill in a TE7 form but wanted some advice on what would happen and if it's worth doing as I understand most get turned down and I don't want to incur the cost of a court action to lose that too.

 

If I do the TE7 and it's not successful, will it go back to the original cost or so the £80 baliff charge still count? And can they add anymore in the meantime that it's being considered.

 

Thanks.

[ploddertom]

Moved to Bailiff Forum.

[Jamberson]

If you are to do this, you will need to complete a TE7 and a TE9 - that's important.

 

Whether it's worth it depends on the situation regarding your address. First thing I would suggest is phone Swansea Council and ask them what address they have been writing to. They would have sent out a Notice to Owner (NTO), then a Charge Certificate, then an Order for Recovery - if none of this reached you, they might have the wrong address on their system.

 

If they have the wrong address, then yes - worth doing the TE7/TE9. If not, it's doubtful you would succeed (although not impossible). There is no court action or costs to you for doing this.

 

Meantime, they can continue enforcement with bailiff visits etc and keep piling on charges, but once the TE7/TE9 is filed, they have to freeze all action until it's dealt with - so you need to act sooner rather than later to stop the case progressing.

 

Can you find out the answer to the address issue and post back here with the answer?

 

If successful, then all bailiff charges will be dropped and you will have the original PCN to either pay or appeal.

[Lolagrace84]

If you are to do this, you will need to complete a TE7 and a TE9 - that's important.

 

Whether it's worth it depends on the situation regarding your address. First thing I would suggest is phone Swansea Council and ask them what address they have been writiing to. They would have sent out a Notice to Owner (NTO), then a Charge Certificate, then an Order for Recovery - if none of this reached you, they might have the wrong address on their system.

 

If they have the wrong address, then yes - worth doing the TE7/TE9. If not, it's doubtful you would succeed (although not impossible). There is no court action or costs to you for doing this.

 

Meantime, they can continue enforcement with bailiff visits etc and keep piling on charges, but once the TE7/TE9 is filed, they have to freeze all action until it's dealt with - so you need to act sooner rather than later to stop the case progressing.

 

Can you find out the answer to the address issue and post back here with the answer?

 

If successful, then all bailiff charges will be dropped and you will have the original PCN to either pay or appeal.

 

Thanks for your reply. They have my correct address but I have had items go missing from them before and have complained to them and royal nail about this.

 

The baliff letter says no further action will be taken until tomorrow at midnight so have time to file them. But I wanted to check that the bailiff can't add further charges in the meantime.

 

If it's unsuccessful will it go straight back to the baliff then and I will have to pay them anyway, no doubt with further charges for contacting me again?

[Jamberson]

He can add extra charges meantime, but only for legitimate work done on the case. He can't just add something on for the sake of it - so if you are going to file these papers, try and do it today and get it officially logged before he visits.

 

If your address is correct on the Council system, the odds are against you. Basically, you will have to state on the forms why the case was allowed to progress to the bailiff stage. I guess you will put that none of the mail arrived, but they will check whether it was addressed correctly and are unlikely to accept that as a reason. As I said, it's not impossible though. Do you have any paperwork you could add to your application, demonstrating your general postal problems? That might add to your chances.

 

If unsuccessful it will go back to bailiffs, but you will have a period of 14 days to consider an appeal against that. But in any respect, no further charges while the whole application is being dealt with.

[tomtubby]

Before the case gets to a bailiff letter the council would first need to send you a Notice to Owner, Charge Certificate AND and Order for Recovery. If you had not received ANY of these notices it would indicate that there is something wrong with the address. Sadly, once an account is sent to the bailiffs it is commonplace for the company to 'data cleanse' the warrant ( and in fact most councils INSIST) that this 'extra service' is provided by the bailiff co in the relevant contracts. 'Data Cleansing' is simply dreadful and is something that I have complained about for years. In simple terms...it means that the address is 'corrected' (this can be by correcting a post code or even a house number).

 

Before filing the OTT I would strongly suggest that you contact TEC and ask them to confirm the PRECISE address on the warrant. If this is your correct address you need to ask if there has been any application to amend the address.

 

Have you checked your V5 to see that the address is correct on that document?

 

PS: Many people will be surprised to know that a couple of years ago the DVLA also undertook a 'Data Cleansing' exercise to 'correct' addresses !!!!!!