corrected typos above

Hi I really could use some help with my situation. Im employed by a large UK organisation as a Project Manager. I have a contract which says location - home based, and travel to national offices as required. I have worked there almost 6 years. Im currently on maternity leave and due to return to work in May. The main office I have to travel to is London and I live in the Midlands, they pay my expenses but a normal working office day is leaving home at 4.30am and getting home at 8.30pm - sometimes I stay overnight in which case I leave the hotel at the second day at 7am so both days Im in the office at 7.30am and leave about 4-5pm depending on meetings. I was placed under a new manager in Nov 12 and was pregnant at the time, I unfortunately had a very late loss of my baby in Jan 13, spent a month off sick, returned to work but was pregnant again within a few weeks. I only worked 1/2 days per week in the office during the majority of my time with the organisation until Dec 13 when I went on maternity leave. I met with my manager today as we agreed we would discuss my return to work. He says his vision of me coming back is 2/3 days per week in the office, happy to pay my expenses and I can choose whether I commute daily (16 hr day) or stay over - I have a 3 month old,9 yr old and 15 yr old at home. The meeting has really upset me as I wasnt expecting what he said. My query is whether they can insist I do this, or whether this is a change to my contract as I've not had to do it before? I said I thought the days required were excessive and were they accounting somewhere for the commuting time, as my contract is home based so I earn and clock up working hours as soon as i leave the house, but he said that they had previously been accomodating bcause of my two pregnancies and now that wouldnt happen because the business requirement is for me to be in the office much more. In addition, when I first became pregnant and they allocated staff, I recieved an email telling me the other person in my role (theres two of us managing a team) would be managing all of the staff "because you are pregnant" - I argued this in writing and said I felt discriminated against so they changed it and I got 50% of the staff allocation - I lost my baby shortly after, and then last November a staff member under my management was off sick with depression and my manager decided to do her interview at home rather than me, and wrote in the confirmation letter "normally Emma would do this interview but as she is pregnant I will be visiting you" The reason was actually because she was in the London office, I was only in the office 1 day per week and she decided unilaterally that she would go, and didnt give me a choice. I guess what I am asking is have I got grounds to ask for just 1/2 days per week in the office? And have they been behaving a bit badly with the constant references to my pregnancies? I think I can apply for flexible working, but I think I already have this by virtue of my contract. And if they refuse then can I be in the position of looking for constructive dismissal? Many thanks for any help - I feel very down about this.

To be honest if we can just walk away, Ill replace the money myself at this point ! Too much of a flaming headache for us !

Thanks everyone for the responses, we saw a solicitor last friday. He advised us that the following applies:He could claim surrender by operation of law based on the Letting agents actions. We now have a photocopy of the HB form (his ex actually kept it just in case!) It asks for the landlord details, and she has entered the letting agents details and the landlord details from the original AST agreement. The lettign agent didnt sign the rent details form they instead gave her the letter I referred to in my earlier posts, which confirms my partner moved out, she stayed and what the rent was. HB have since made two calls to them to check details when her situation changed, one of which was in October this year, and again they confirmed the rent this time by a fax. The letting agent is arguing that because he continued to pay rent to them, its not a surrender, but the solicitor has wrote to them for us to say they are ill advised if they feel like going to court on the S.21 they have served on him, as he feels a judge would say that because the landlord has treated her as a tenant, and arranged all repairs and gas servicing etc with her, that actually she is the tenant. And it now appears the deposit wasnt protected either, so we have another battle now to get that back! Merry Xmas !

HB have confirmed they accepted the letter that the letting agent provided which went along the lines as detailed above, and the original tenancy agreement which was in my partners sole name - allegedly they believed the letter from the letting agent to be a "surrender" of the previous tenancy rights, and a type of assignment of the agreement to her. Someone more senior in HB is due to call us back tomorrow. As it stands the letting agent remains firm that my partner is the tenant and has stated openly today that if HB have got it wrong then its not their fault - they havent assigend the tenancy to her, they just gave her a rent confirmation. Incidentally they take repair requests from her, and when the gas servicing has been done annually its her they have arranged it with and issued the certificate to. Is that relevant ?

Hi need some advice for my partner - sorry if long winded! My partner took on an AST starting Feb 2008, his partner wouldnt pass a credit check so its a sole tenancy. It became periodic after 6 months, and then in Nov 2009 he moved out when their relationship broke down. The letting agent allowed her to stay there cliaming Housing Beneft. My partner paid the rent and she paid him back. Moving on to the summer, and he was advised that this was fraud, and he should be concerned about the state of the property as the deposit is his. He served notice on the letting agent to end the tenancy, however then was told by his ex that actually she had been to Homeless Persons Unit, and to Housing Aid, and they all agreed that the landlord had surrendered the tenancy with my partner by operation of law - this is because they issued a letter which said the following: "To whom it may concern, we are aware that Mr X has left the property and no longer resides there. His ex partner Miss X remains in the property as does their child, and the rent due each month is £**" Homeless Persons unit have told her that she has an implied tenancy, as at the point of writing this letter the agent revoked my partners tenancy rights as the letter also gives her the right to exclude him from the property, thereby acting in a way that isnt consistent with a tenant? The letting agent however, despite knowing this as he wrote to them last week, served him with a S.21 last week, and says they will take him to court for possession as they havent given her a tenancy and we dont know whose right ?

I am havaing a bit of a rough time at the moment recently losing my dad, and some other personal issues. This is really starting to get to me now, ass they havent stopped ringing either. Are they allowed to still contact me to ask me to pay it?

Update is that yesterday I got another letter from 1st Credit. They said in it, they understood I had raised a dispute over the debt and would get in touch with their client and let me know the outcome. This could take up to one month. In the meantime, unless I dispute the whole debt I shouold get in touch immediately to discuss my payment options. What Im confused about is surely the debt is unenforceable, as they still havent produced a CCA. The only other letter I sent was the one someone on here gave me that says "now you have defaulted on my CCa request, you're not getting another penny"! Can I tell them to go away now and that I want my money back?

Hi this has now become very wierd and I am a bit confused. I made the set aside application, and had recieved a lleter from Connaughts one day and 1st Credit the next both basically saying it had been referred back to Sky card for the agreement under my CCa request - didnt get my pound back though !! As of tomorrow they have had the request over a month, and I think that means they commit an offence? I got a voicemail last week after recieving a hearing date for my set aside, saying they understood my circumstances, and had withdrawn the Stat demand. I didnt trust them so went to the court and they had in fact sent in writing to the court to say they wanted to withdraw. The court asked me to sign to agree to it, so I guess that is kind of a victory. What really has thrown me is that the clerk I spoke to said there had been lots of cases through recently, and one lady had claimed back through the court £1000 that she had paid under duress to a DCA who later proved to not have a valid agreemenet. I didnt think you could do this, does anayone know if you can, as Ive paid them £2300.00 which would be very nice to have back. Im profoundly deaf, so they dealt with my sister on the phone and she was told that unless she got me to pay the £2000 plus £100 per month, then I would be made bankrupt, so they never actually discussed it with me. Grateful for any advice

I went into the court instead this morning, and saw a lovely lady who said Ive got until Friday so sorting out my wording tonight. Interestingly as Id CCa'd both Connaughts and 1st Credit, I got the same response from 1st Credit today as well saying they did not hold the CCA there but had requested the copy from the original creditor. They hope that I will "get in touch when it arives in order to make arrangements to pay my debt". So does this basically mean neither of them have it, and therefore as the response time was up today that this is good set aside grounds? Should they be asking for the money if they dont have the CCA? Final question of the day, do I carry on making my payments? I never disputed I owed the money, it was just who I owed it to. Ive been making payments to 1st Credit which was why I was so shocked to get the stat demand in the 1st place. Does their response now mean I didnt have to hand over £2000 ?? In fact I may not really want to hear the answer to that one ............

Just contacted my local court, they deal with these matters but she has told me there is not much I can do as the SD is dated 15th December. Although I didnt get it until a few days ago !! What happens next?

Thanks for the quick reesponse. I got told yesterday by someone to wait and see if they went ahead and if they did then reply by asking why I had not recieved a stat demand but I take it thats a bad idea. Im not a non payer, Im up to date with my payments, so surely no court will make me bankrupt? Im in negative equity and I only paid them by increasing our borrowing. Luckily we dont have other detbs only the usual overdraft and car hire which are bang up to date.

Hi Im new here but have been lurking for a bit !! I got a stat demand from 1st Credit back in August for £5000 or thereabouts for credit card debt. I panicked , knew nothing about demands etc and spent days on the phone to them. Eventually they convinced me to pay them £2000 and then an amount each month (keeping the figure vague in case they lurk !) I paid Octobers and then had an accident in November, and paid it with Decembers. They agreed to this over the phone, yes I am stupid, I then got a letter on 3rd December from Connaughts threatenign to issue a stat demand asking me to ring to book a time. By then, Id found this site, and didnt, but sent a "Do not acknowledge debt" letter with £1 and a CCA request. I also sent one to 1st credit as I realised I should have done this to start with. Then on Xmas Eve of all days, I got a stat demand from Connaughts, have all the papers to set aside but did not ackowledg service to them (second class Royal Mail), however today I got a letter saying they thank me for my CCA request they dont have the info and have asked 1st Credit to provide it to them. They THANK me for my patience. I am lost as to what to do next. Both CCA requests were signed fro last Saturday, but am I right in thinking if its Connaughts chasing the money (despite the fact Im up to date on my payments to 1st Credit) then should they not be able to provide a CCA without requesting it from elsewhere? Also, have not acknowledged stat demand but can they still proceed if they havent got the information? Thanks