Bailiff advice needed please!

[Nicki]

My partner has a small business and he has been struggling to make ends meet in the last few months. He got behind with his business rates and...although we made efforts to pay the council, we ended up with a summons and today the bailiffs called. We owe the council £1103.27, but with the bailiffs fees the amount comes to 1424.32. My partner works in a joinery workshop and it would be impossible to ignore bailiffs at the door (the door is always open and they can walk straight in. In the end they said he would have to pay a minimum of £400 then and there, or they would take away his machines (if they did that he wouldn't be able to work). He managed to pay £432.32 on a credit card, they wrote down the names of some of his machines and told him to sign a walking possession agreement...which he stupidly did.

Having since read some of the threads on this site I now realise that he shouldn't have paid them anything or signed anything, but the fact is he has, and what we need to know is what can we do now? They say they will come back to get the remaining £1000 next week. We will be able to pay it by then but is there any way we can just pay the initial debt and not the bailiffs fees? I am so angry at having to pay an extra £300 to a bunch of ******ers when we are already struggling to make ends meet! I'd be really grateful for some advice.

[tomtubby]

The bailiff is well aware that he cannot by law remove tools of the trade and I am surprised, but not shocked that he included them on a Walking Possession.

 

You should write to the bailiff company to complain and copy it also to the local authority. In your letter you should put an offer of repayment that is affordable.