Thanks for the advice guys. I've contacted the council direct and explained the situation to them and asked them to recall the debt from dukes so we can pay them direct. I'm guessing that there's a snowballs chance in hell of dukes accepting a reasonable offer such as £10 a month while we trace her Ex to pass his details on the council. I've mailed Dukes asking them to pause action while we wait for the council to respond. I'll update you with the outcome, In the meantime I'm going to try and convince her to go down the DRO route.

hi guys Looking for a bit of advice. My wife has received 2 notices of enforcement from Dukes regarding council tax from 2002/2003. The council obtained liability orders in 2004 against both her and her ex. Now 14 years on out of the blue she has received these notices and giving 14 days to pay or have bailiffs knocking on our door. She is on ESA due to depression & anxiety and this has tipped her over the edge quite a bit so I'm looking for advice. What are dukes like to deal with? I've not really heard anything good about them so far. While I've talked to her about a DRO as she does have other debts, are there better options? If anyone else has anything that I can use to either fight or find a solution to this quickly it would be really appreciated. Thanks for your help in advance.

Advice needed: Another letter from Advantis landed this morning informing me that If I don't pay this statue barred debt, then a agent from HMRC will without notice call at my address and if not paid seize my possessions and sell them at auction!!!! They have admitted to me that the debt is indeed statue barred and that they are unable to take legal action. But I was under the impression that HMRC only had the power to seize goods if the debt was for Tax.... Is anyone able to confirm this?

Short update: Advantis and HMRC have informed me that indeed the debt is not enforceable through the legal action but Advantis have said and I quote "We will carry on with sending letter to enforce payment" In other words they will carry on wasting taxpayers money sending pointless letters..... However today I received a interesting letter from them that I feel needs to be highlighted and maybe even action taken.... The part of the letter reads: Failure to contact us to make arrangements to pay your debt may lead to us recommending to HM Revenue & Customs that they commence non payment of tax enforcement action which may include: A local agent visiting your property to collect payment Legal proceedings being taken against you Standard crap in the form of empty threats but they are trying to say that this is a TAX debt for which different rules apply... misleading would be a understatement. I'm starting to wonder what action to take... After trying to get my wife to take out a bank loan etc and now implying that the debt is in fact a Tax debt when it is not and they are fully aware of what the debt is.... Something needs to be done before they give some poor soul a heart attack.

Ok thank you very much.... I will be very nice when he rings back in 15min.... I promise lol

Back in 2006 tax credits lost our claim and we had to wait 4 months for them to sort it out... So after lots of phone calls and letters we got it back dated for the whole 4 months... Now they just sent a load giros which amounted to around £3000... Before we cashed them we rang to make sure they were the right amounts and they were ok to cash... They confirmed that yes it was the missed payments and under payments.. Fast forward to now... Letter from Tax credits claiming a overpayment on WTC for £450... After much head serching i pinned the amount to the giros.... Also got a letter from Advantis DCA... So I sent the standard over 6 years old statue barred letter. They rang the Mrs this morning telling her it can't be barred and she needs to get a loan or credit card to pay the amount in full... She explained that I deal with the money side and was in bed due to working late... He tried to find out how much we earn/ do we have savings etc.... The guy is ringing back at 11am to speak to me... I never deal with DCA's on the phone but after what he has said this morning I'm fuming.. Any advice/facts that I can throw at him when he rings back would be useful... In the meantime I'm going to appeal against the amount as I now understand you can't statue bar tax credits... Thanks in advance for any help.

Lowells have placed an account he had with a catalog onto my file. The accounts in default. He stayed with me for about 6 months before he went to Canada to work. He has now stayed there and as I fell out with him I don't have his current contact details. I contacted Noodle explaining this and they have wrote to me twice now telling me it's up to Lowells to remove it. I've contacted Lowells twice about it and the second time they said they were unable to talk about it to a third party! It's like banging my head against a wall... Its not the debt I want to talk about it's removing it from my credit file. Are there any other options to get this removed from my file? Thank you in advance for any help

Yes I've checked Noddle and its listed on there as £128 (debt+fees) So i'll have to wait till it updates and make sure it's shown as settled.

Final update... I rang Moriarty Law to find out why they had just issued CCJ summons and not responded to my offer. A very polite and helpful young man could not do enough to help me... The letter it seems was not received/lost in the system they were not aware of what we are going through.. . After a phone call to Merligen Investments they accepted an offer of 50p in the pound and wrote off the court/solicitors fees... . Maybe they do have a heart after all.. . Settled in full £25.00 Thank you to everyone on here for your help and support and I suspect that they also read the posts here as he knew who I was as soon as I said my name.

DX where do I send the info to? Sorry for being blonde.... I'm on the verge of just paying this really can't cope with the extra pressure atm to be honest.

As the clock ticks my options are running out... I can file for extra time and fight it or pay up.

Update: I wrote to Moriarty Law with a settlement offer and explained my current situation to them.... They have responded with court summons!! These guys are one bunch of sick gits.. One of the reasons I'm behind with some of these minor payments is I'm still paying for my 6yr old daughters funeral... Any spare money I have goes to the undertakers.... I offered them £30 for a debt of £59 given that they only pay a max of 20p in the pound this I felt this was a fair offer. I have about a week left before this is rubber stamped by the court and I get my first CCJ.... Is there any other action I can take other than pay it?

Could we have a update on this thread for Bright house please. They have now changed the way they work.... . The over priced insurance is now included in the price of the goods and you no longer have a choice to take it or not. They refuse to give you a break down of the cost of the goods and insurance and say you can only buy goods off them with it included. The late fee payment is now £5.50 per agreement and if you have any thing in the yellow money (extra money pushed as a place to save) you no can no longer take it out. Seems to me they are breaking the consumer law on several points and since we no longer have OFT are just taking the pee. A friend whom I was unable to talk out of buying from them, just bought a Xbox one through them costing over £1500..... retail price £389 from PC World.co.uk

It wasn't a roll over just a small short term loan that was almost paid.... Were talking under £50! I just never heard of or had dealings with this company before... So hence I did a little digging to find the Boss of the DCA also set up the so called law firm. Knowing they paid 10-20p in the pound for it I'll make them a one off, one time only offer lol Believe it or not this sometimes works.. . Had Vanquis card with a balance of £350 and they took my one time only offer of £100 to clear the balance. It just seemed very heavy handed tactics for such a small amount. Been not one to give into these bully boys I like them to work for their money

Hi I had a small debt with a door step shark(Morses) which after the agent stopped collecting ended up going to a DCA. This morning a letter from Moriarty Law came informing they intend to take court action... After I stopped laughing I did a little digging and have found the following... The address of this law firm 15 Old Bailey, London EC4M 7EF is a virtual office.. . Bit more digging revels that the name of the firms director is also the same as Merligen Investments Ltd. So in other words it's not a real law firm but a in house dept using a Virtual office to look like a real law firm...... Now I seen a some bits about this in the papers of late the biggest been Wonga who had to pay customers compo and stop using the pratice... Does this mean that this investment firm have broke the law/ need reporting or what? Never had dealings with this firm or come across them before so before I make them a final payment offer I just wondered if I have ammo to twist their arms into taking a low offer.

I have an agreement with quick quid with a outstanding balance of £447. I emailed them to explain that due to xmas/new year payment date changes i would not be able to repay the full amount and could I arrange a repayment over 3 months? No reply to the email but they have taken £217 out of my bank without explaining what it is for or even asking for that matter. The card they used was cancelled after it was snapped by a over keen atm machine. Yet the bank payed out on it? The downside is that now as a family of 5 we have no money for shopping or petrol for me to get to work. They have left us high and dry. The bank are sending out a form for a charge back but this takes time. Would I have a case complaining to trading standards and the OFT regarding the taking of money without my consent. Is there anything I can do if I ring these [EDIT]? Any help would be great.

I bought a touch screen PC from BH in July 2010 10 weeks ago it started playing up. off they sent it for repairs...... It was repaired after 3 weeks but it took them a further 5 weeks to return it to me... .picked the box up from the store and took it home. Opened the box to find one of the legs had been snapped off!!!! Great plugged it in to see if it had been fixed. (It had kept shutting down after 10 min) to find the disc drive no longer accepted discs and the screen was cover in what looked like dried milk! back to the store it went. Now for the 9th week of been without the PC waiting to see what they will try and pass off for a replacement. They seem to think that I will accept a used model when my agreement clearly states NEW. Not sure where I stand on this but I will be putting up a fight for a new one! Any guidance on how to push BH for a new replacement gratefully received. For the record the staff treat you like a second class person who has no rights and talk down to you. Miss a payment which I did once when I was snowed in and all hell breaks loose.... Once my agreement ends or I find a get out clause that wont cost me money, I will never darken their doors again.