It will depend how the legislation is worded, but I would be surprised if it prevented using reasonable force merely to move the vehicle no further than necessary. There is a huge difference between that and stealing the vehicle until a large blackmail demand is paid. Outlawing that is the objective here.

It will ultimately depend how the legislation is worded, but I would be very surprised if it affected any action by public bodies.

I would advise NOT to bank the cheque as you are not entitled to the money back. Likewise, they have no power to refund it. Why did you leave a penny outstanding though? This seems to be asking for trouble?

Assuming they mean Feb 2011, they also seem to have applied a six month sanction as the starting point, which is a gross error of law. There is plenty of case law to say that six months is reserved for only the worst cases and that one week is the starting point. (In addition to the sanction being wrong anyway.) I would make it very clear to them that you expect this decision to be changed at once or you will be claiming compensation.

Agree with all the above, especially about the database. How long did you work there, and did they give proper notice and final pay etc?

HB/CTB are unaffected as you can still get it on grounds of low or no income. There is also a difference between a sanction, and ending JSA altogether. In the former case you are still treated as receiving JSA and still automatically qualify for HB/CTB; in the latter case you must provide evidence of income and capital. The council may well be clueless about this so be ready to educate them. And as above, please appeal the ridiculous JSA decision.

Is it possible you were entitled to some benefits while claiming? See this case. The alleged £65k overpayment (over a long time period) was reduced to about £4k as the council had not taken into account the person's underlying lawful entitlement. And for housing and council tax benefit you can make an appeal at any time by requesting a statement of reasons for the decision, giving 14 days to appeal from when the statement is received.

What about letters from the council?

What documents did you receive about the PCN, and what replies did you make?

As some or most of you no doubt know, the tax credits payments that are paid through the year are only provisional. The actual entitlement is not finalised until the end of the year, which may or may not be the same as what was paid. This is what leads to under- or over-payments. Something very odd and worrying has just happened to me, and if they're getting this wrong in this case, they might be getting it wrong for everyone. I send in my final declaration on time and have just received the final entitlement notice. There was an unexplained overpayment of nearly £300. Even though I know a bit about the rules, it took me an hour or so to work out why. My job had ended earlier in the year, and at the time they (corectly) paid the four-week run on. But in the final entitlement notice, the four weeks had been removed. This was very sneaky as it was not explained at all, and it seems unlikely that most people would ever have noticed. I have appealed, but the moral is CHECK your final notices, and check they include ALL of your correct entitlement, and if not, APPEAL within 30 days at the latest, DON'T wait. You can take more detailed advice later. Otherwise you will be paying it back. (And in any tax credits appeal against an entitlement decision, always state that it is a section 38 appeal, and not just a dispute over whether to recover the overpayment.)

Magistrates' bailiffs are especially out of control for some reason, especially with making up fees. The good news is according to Hansard's report of parliamentary discussion, the power to use forced entry has only been used nine times since 2006. You could try to persuade the court that they have fouled up by ignoring your income/expenditure form and get them to reconsider it.

Culligan v Simpkin deals with alleged 'attendance to remove charges' before a levy has taken place. It's not binding, but Marstons were given the chance to appeal and declined. As for a waiting fee, there is quite simply no such thing.

Here you go: http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forum-archive/index0dd2.html

That is true for most benefits, but for housing and council tax benefit there is currently no time limit for requesting a statement of reasons. This is a (presumably) unintended loophole, but is widely known about. This applies even outside the normal 13 months. I will find the exact regulations.

The time limit for appealing is usually a month. Fortunately, for housing and council tax benefit there is a loophole where you can appeal within 14 days of receiving a statement of reasons, and there is no time limit for requesting a statement. So request a statement of reasons for the decision; the council must provide one, then you can appeal within 14 days.

If no order for recovery was served on the OP, then the order is invalidated under regulation 23 of the General regs as soon as the OP serves a witness statement. The statement cannot be out of time until 21 days from when the OfR is served on the debtor (and not on someone else). I know they get this wrong, but we don't have to encourage it do we? If they continue the action regardless, judicial review is a possibility.

No

Exactly, they are clear that you are not allowed to park there if you do not comply with the requirements, so they can hardly claim to be agreeing to be bound on acceptance to offer the parking space as consideration.

In English contract law there is generally an objective test for whether a contract was made (Centrovincial Estates v Merchant Investors Assurance Company (1983)), so this is not really a viable line of attack in itself. If the sign is not objectively clearly visible it would be.

The point of Culligan is that there are two stages to levying distress. The first is the levy (seizure), for which set charges are laid down. There is then an opportunity for the debtor to pay. The second stage is then removal of the debtor's goods if he does not pay. For this, further reasonable costs may be added. Marstons were trying to charge £100 for clamping on the grounds it was a reasonable charge. The judge held they could not, as at the levy stage no charges can be added beyond the fixed % fees prescribed in regulations, even if the bailiff incurrs additional reasonable costs. Only when removing or attending to remove goods which have already been levied, after the debtor has had a further opportunity to pay, can they add reasonable costs for doing so.

Shame such a contract would be void on grounds of public policy and breach of the DDA (if you are a disabled driver), even if you ignore all the other issues with private tickets.

But there is no law which requires the debtor to pay these fees.

It's not theft as there is no intention to permenantly deprive, and TWOC only applies to vehicles.

It seems pretty clear to me that there is no power to refuse a payment. The problem is there is no effective remedy to turn to in these cases. HMCS have got into bed with the likes of Marstons and are acting purely to earn fees for the latter. These fees do not even have any legal basis, until goods are actually levied and sold, and they cannot levy for fees alone, but again it's the lack of a remedy if they do anyway. I'm planning to write to the author of The Magistrate's Blog who seems a fair minded sort of person to see if he can investigate or offer any advice over the wider issue.

Do not pay, this charge is completely bogus. They were entirely wrong to detain you for 'acting suspiciously' as there is no such offence. If all the allegations that have been made against RLP were to be substantiated, and the principle of civil recovery were valid, RLP would be a net payer-out.