BTW I happen to know where they live, however I dont feel I will get blood from a stone. Are the coucil involved not aiding and abetting by paying housing benefits for another property when they just abandoned this one?

I dont see us getting any monies from the ex-tenants. however i do feel that HB should pay, whats the law with that. They have been fully involved with these clients. Whilst they cannot be held resposible for their actions they can be accountable for the HB.

We were notified by a concerned neighbour that the property had been abandoned in early Jan. The tenants were not working and in receipt of HB. They had been introduced to us by a Local Authority Housing Scheme and been fast tracked through with HB which was being paid directly to me. The standard assured shorthold agreement was witnessed by Housing Officer and they were very much involved in this threeway process. When we let then know they have abandoned the property, for reasons unknown, they say 'Oh Dear' well you can claim for a months rent. As the rent was oaid in arrears, that only takes us upto the day of discovering it was empty. Have been in contact (mobile number that they sometimes chose to answer) they do ot want to move back in. No excuse why! Applying for HB on another house elsewhere. Not paid any bills, lots of CCJ's etc being delivered. They have returned the keys to the house and removed all personal effects including stealing fixtures and fittings. They should be tied into contract for another 6 months. HB has stopped because they failed to turn upto an appointment. They are crashing at friends and relatives whilst they are waiting for the other house to be decorated. So I feel I have done everything to satisy that they no longer wish to luve there, however with regards to being paid uptil the time they moved out. Is is likely I will get this HB backpaid? Really infuriates me that people can do this and we the workers pick up the tab! Any help and advise much appreciated.

there is an online system for disputes but you have to give all of your evidence first. I cannot do this as i will be requesting info from them first. So i write to the PO Box processing centre of to the Council? Do I write at this stage that i am disputing the ticket?

Maybe i should not have used the perminology of being 'broken down'. With no headlights, side lights, hazards or flashers working it would have been unsafe and unroadworthy for him to have driven. Not mechnics though and couldnt get anyone to give attention to first thjing the next morning.

The PCN was issued code 30 for being parked longer than was permitted. The restriction was an hour parking from 8am-5pm. So they claim it was issued at 9.10. The driver was actually with the vehicle adressing the electrical fault and /or setting off from that car park. No ticket was attached to the vehicle. The ticketing officer never made any contact with the driver, nor tried to attach a ticket, nor even gave any interest whilst the driver was insitu. No scanner-sorry If a car has broken down and its being addressed, can they still give tickets?

To clear up any confusion, the restrictions started at 8am, but allowed for an hour parking. This meant that parking was within restrictions up until 9am. I disagree that we were driving away because there was never any interest from the ticket officer whilst we were with the vehicle. The area i notice is CCTv'ed and we actually had a wheel cover stolen from the vehicle at some point during its 'laid up' period.

Hi, I have just had a letter of 'Notice to Owner' with regards to an unpaid PCN. The details are correct with regards to Vehicle details but I do want to challenge as i think that they are wrong in issuing, for several reasons. Firstly the vehicle was loaned to a Family member as bigger room for transporting goods. There was never a ticket attached to the vehicle, hence it not being paid or brought to light that there was indeed a PCN! The vehicle was parked in an unrestricted area from 8pm until 9am the next morning, which was within the restrictions. The vehicle is a vintage vehicle that had developed an electrical fault, which was discovered in the late evening. All of the headlights and side lights were not working upon return to the vehicle. making it unsafe to drive. As such, the decision was made to leave the vehicle in situ and return in the morning to move it then. When the driver returned the ticketing officer was ticketing other cars parked there which clearly had tickets attached to the windowscreen. He never approached the vehicle, or spoke to the driver or appeared to be taking any interest in that vehicle. The ticket was issued at 9.10am. Parking was allowed for an hour from 8am. Driver was with the vehicle by 9am and this was obviously within the restrictions. Unusual situation, but what do you think are my chances of appeal?

Thanks Yes I have contacted them and someone is calling me back. Still after letter templates re; rules of engagement cheers

Ok so for those of you who had replied to this thread, would you still say that solicitor representation is essential? Also taking into account the sum of money involved? Thanks

Bump

We are in the East Mids. I thought i would mention that the amount in question is a shade over £1000 which is why it will be the small claims court and we have not hired a solicitor. If were going to could we claim for their fees if we win outright? What if the judge did a 50/50 type win Could the opposition not only claim for there originally alleged fee + solicitors fee if they win? Any Rules of Engagment Letter templates would be good please

Ok can anyone recommend a good solicitor in this field? I can at least contact them about this Thanks

You guessed right!! We continued our claim directly with the insurers and proved that our third party imtermediaries had infact got it right first time, then for no apparent reason, had that offer lowered to our detriment, through their misinformation. So OK we all make mistakes, but these guys refused to see that they had. They seemed happy with the fact that we had got ANY settlemnt not THE BEST possible settlement based on correct information. We have proven this, (though we have never disclosed this to them-should we?), by dealing directly proving them wrong and being awarded a higher settlement. BTW i thought that the small claims court was so that the common man could get some justice? We cant afford solicitors fees and will be representing ourselves. What are the rules of engagement?

Hi, I really need some sound legal advice with rather an unusual case basically about breach of contract. The company in question was hired to help us claim for being mis-sold an endowment. They can be referred to a third party claims handler. We have since discovered that their practices were regulated by no-one in an official capacity. On a voluntary level they were pretty much self regulated by a body that there top guys sat on the board of! More recently they are regulated by The Ministry of Justice, who cannot take on rhetrospective cases but do offer civil legal advice on an individual case basis. They did review our case that spans over 4 yrs & concluded that we had a very strong case for breach of contract. Ok so i will begin with my story.... We hired them, they asked us to provide them with specific details about when we took out our endowment. They went to FSA and made a complaint about the insurance company who had provided our endowment. They awarded us monetary compensation. We queried it and were not very happy with the award, as it seemed very small in comparison to the endowment shortfall amount. Then we had a second cheque arrive without warning for a lesser amount and with no covering letter. We contacted our hired company to see what it was all about. Turns out that we had been awarded lesser still because'we were not relying on the whole original amount of the endowment policy to pay our current mortgage'. This was laughable because not only were we relying on it, but a whole lot more since we had moved and had a much bigger mortgage now. We obviously disputed this and asked where they had got this information from? They did'nt seem to know! So we asked them to go back to the insurance company, telling them of the error and asking that they re-evaluate the claim. They not only refused to do so, but also lied by trying to scare us by saying that if we queried it then we may get a lesser award still! We have since learned that the FSA have devised a formula for calculating compensation, so that it was fair. The company in question knew this and would have easily been able to perform such a calculation. We were annoyed that we had lost out on money seemingly twice over and that this company were not acting in our best interest by wanting us to get the correct and higher settlement. We wrote to them stating as much and pointing out that there errors had caused us financial loss and as such their breach was resulting in our termination of any contract with them. We then concentrated our efforts to dealing with insurance company directly and getting the right compensation. The third party company non-the-less billed us for 25% plus vat of the lesser award, that we never accepted. We have been through their grievience procedure and Ministry of Justice. They went away for a while but have since come back out the woodwork looking to settle debts. they have been bought out by another company (does this have any bearing on claims?) We have always denied any alleged debts and have stood by non-performance and breach. We tried to arbritrate with them over a small fee for administrative term and hit brick walls. We have both sent cease and desist type letters. They are going to file to small claim court wednesday next week, so we need to make our next move fast and clever. We were going to make a fixed offer for admin time (a days work max!!) and again stand by the fact we owe them nothing as they caused nothing but headache for us, that we cleaned up and finalised directly with insurance company as they flatly refused to! Letter templates and advise urgently needed..