We are on day 9 of no internet now. Still nothing from Sky. No update since the 18th. This is not a local outage by the way. People all over the country are experiencing the same problems. Some have had no internet for over two weeks! Right now I am using a 4G router and sim for all my services, including streaming from Sky! Why am I paying them for a service they are not providing? I did write to them and officially gave notice of my intention to cancel the contract. I have heard nothing from them. I do have the automated response acknowledging my email. I am sorely tempted to cancel the direct debit and argue about it later. Given their poor service and the fact that I have contacted them on several occasions with no response other than "there is an outage". I think I have pretty good grounds to win if they try to pursue the outstanding two months payment on my contract? I am paying them £55 per month. I don't mind paying when I am receiving the service but when I have to pay a 4G network on top of the Sky subscription in order to receive "their" services I think it is a bit much? By the way, the other suppliers here, Plusnet, Vodafone, TalkTalk etc all of whom use the Openreach network and the same box which sits across the road from my apartment are all working fine. Everyone in the building has internet except me and I am the only one with Sky. I don't want to go down the road of just cancelling the direct debit. It is a messy way to go about things but I can't see any other option right now. The thing that stops me from doing this is that I need to sign up with another provider and I think cancelling the DD would cause problems in doing that?

Thanks for the reply. I would definitely not just cancel and not pay the remaining two months because that starts off a chain reaction of debt collectors and so on. They don't deserve the money and I have a feeling I would not get it back, but as you say, worth writing to them and giving notice. I think my main concern is just being able to sign up with someone else before my Sky contract ends. I am not sure I can do that unless Sky cancels my current contract?

Our Sky broadband and phone have been down for 7 days now. There has been no update at all from Sky. No reason given for the outage or estimated time for a fix. I am not the only one by the way, this is country wide although some people have a partial connection and others have been without broadband for almost two weeks. My contract is up in April and I definitely won't be renewing but I work from home and need broadband of some description. Right now I am relying on my mobile's 4G connection, which where we are is often very slow and of course it is costing me extra for the data. I have invested in a 4G router so I don't need to tie up my phone and I am just waiting on an unlimited sim to arrive. So I have spent over £100 this week on 4G. Sky do pay compensation for each day's outage but only after two days have passed and this is "credited" to our Sky account. The problem with that of course is that we never see it. Sky get it back one way or another so it is not really compensation at all. It doesn't offset the cost of my 4G data use. The question I have is that, given the service has been down for 7 days (5 business days) am I entitled to cancel the contract without penalty? I have read some posts on various social media and forums saying I can but others saying I cannot. Or rather I can cancel but I would need to pay the remainder of the contract. I figured the CAG would be the best place for advice one way or the other?

Good idea. There should definitely be locks on the bin sheds. At least that would prevent non-residents from dumping anything. The only problem then is that someone would need to make sure the sheds are unlocked for the refuse collections every week. I am sure we could sort something out. Cameras would be very handy but given these clowns have trouble fixing the loose handle on the front door in the lobby and take an age to respond to requests to replace blown bulbs in the entrance area I don't hold out much hope. This is a fairly large development and they have the contract for all of it. They are making an absolute fortune for doing bugger all! Now they have the cheek to threaten us with charges for removing someone else's rubbish...which by the way has not actually been removed and is still in the bin shed. I will deliver a letter to each resident and see if we can sort this out. I "think" I know who the culprit might be but can't prove it and in any case I am not sure they are away that these items will not be taken in a "normal" bin collection. Worth giving them the benefit of the doubt and perhaps guiding them toward the right solution.

I expect the property management company to deal with it. We are not here to police the other residents. We pay the property management enough money every year for very little in the way of maintenance. Of course, it is difficult to identify who the perpetrator(s) is but that doesn't mean I or any of the other residents should be paying to remove someone else's rubbish. And how can we even be sure it is residents of our block putting this stuff in there? The bin sheds have no locks so anyone could be dumping rubbish in there. I hear what you are saying about not letting the place slide into the realms of being a slum. This is a nice modern development and certainly myself and the residents that I know personally would never let that happen. I guess we are just going to have to find out who is doing the dumping. Not sure how but there must be a way.

I live in a small apartment block of 12 flats. They are all leashold and there is a property management company that looks after communal areas and gardens. Over the past couple of months someone, maybe more than one person in the block has been placing large items in the communal bin sheds that the local council will not take. Things such as broken tv's, computer chairs, a large pet cage etc. There are notices up around the building about not doing this but it continues to happen. The property management company has now emailed a few of the residents stating that if this happens again, ALL residents will be liable for any charges incurred in having the items removed. There is nothing in our lease or property management agreement that states we will be charged for the actions of other residents. I think the property management's actions are not only morally wrong but possibly illegal? Not sure hence why I ask here. Thanks.

Ok well basically she suffers from clinical depression. She has suicidal thoughts and is on quite a high dose of medication. Even with the meds she still has days when if I were not here I am pretty sure she would end it all. She has trouble focusing on anything and often forgets things like she leaves the gas cooker on, forgets where she puts things, forgets whether she has taken her meds or not and often can't remember what day it is. I am sure there are people in a much worse situation but I can tell you to say it is stressful for me is a gross understatement! Even when she was working I half expected every day to hear she had thrown herself in front of a train . That was why I made her go to see her doctor and eventually she was signed off as unfit to work. Having heard others horrors stories with the DWP I actually count ourselves very lucky! I think my only option is to find a way to make more money.

Well I can understand the reasoning behind the MIF. It gives you a choice. If you want to be self employed they don't hassle you to find a job but then it is your responsibility to make the money. Otherwise register as unemployed and go through that process of being forced to find a job...and probably one you don't want. It has its pros and cons. Ideally I would make at least enough to cover the outgoings but life is often not like that. Things are not black and white. Lots of shades of grey in between. And they would say register as unemployed. But then who will be here for my wife? As mentioned my wife is on this 'Limited capability for work and work-related activity' thing which I don't think is the same as PIP? So not sure how I would claim as her carer or even if that would apply. Going to be a pretty stressful start to the New Year I think

Thanks for that. I think the sticking point for me at least is the fact that I was on the New Enterprise Allowance scheme. That lasts for 12 months and during that time I did not have to look for work etc. However it was made clear to me that at the end of the 12 month period I would be deemed to be on minimum wage even if I had no income. So in other words our UC would be cut regardless of income. My wife's health situation, without going into too much detail is that I cannot leave her on her own, certainly not for any extended period of time. This has been explained to DWP and is the main reason I wanted to go self employed. I can work from home and be here for my wife so it's a win both ways. Obviously helps if I have an actual income though! It's a work in progress but I will get there. I have no choice really. Thanks again for your help.

To cut a long story short me and my wife have been receiving Universal Credit for the past 18 months. For the last 12 months of that period I have been on the New Enterprise Allowance scheme. The aim was to turn a busy website I own into at least a basic income. My wife has been declared unfit for work by both her own doctor and the DWP's assessor. As a result she was awarded a 'Limited capability for work and work-related activity' payment of £336.20 pm. Our total UC comes to £1531 pm. Thing is, as from January 1st 2020 UC will automatically assume I am on minimum wage...which I am not as it has been a bumpy ride and only recently has any money started to be generated from my business. So given that there will be an automatic assumption that I am on minimum wage and taking into account that my wife cannot work I am wondering what hit that will have on our monthly UC. I am guessing quite a massive one? The figures for our UC are as follows: My wife's Limited capability for work payment: £336.20 pm Standard rate as a couple: £498.89pm Our rent is £875pm and UC pay £696.48 of that. My calculation may be wrong but I think minimum wage per month is something around £1296? Also as a couple with only one person in work and one on the Limited capability for work and work-related activity list I think we have a "work allowance" i.e what money I can earn before our UC is affected of £287pm? After which we lose 63p for every £1 earned? Not sure how this will all pan out but wondered if anyone here might have experience of this sort of thing and would know approx, what we can expect come next month? MAny thanks.

Just thought I would update on the outcome of this whole thing. Lowell failed to respond to the court within the 16 days allowed and so the court have determined that my offer of £10 per month is acceptable and have made an order to that effect. So now as long as I maintain the £10 a month, which I can do. Everything is sorted. Thanks again for everyone's input on this. Helps enormously to be able to discuss these things with people who are experienced in such matters and perhaps have been through the process themselves.

Yeah that's what I thought. Why on earth come up to the apartment just to slip an unmarked envelope through and not even knock on the door? Anyway, not heard anything again today so hopefully Lowell have figured out this is a lost cause and will just accept my offer. If they don't I think it goes back to the court to decide?

Just a quick update on this. So I did send the N245 to Oxford. Horsham had not even looked at it so didn't lose any money there. I phone the court on Tuesday to check on progress and they confirmed they had received the form and forwarded it to Lowell who has 16 days to respond. They also said they had notified the bailiff. So that was good, something happening at least. Then yesterday we had a letter pushed through the door, hand delivered, no postage and which was "Notice Of Visit By Bailiff" It went on to say: Thing is, we were at home. No one pressed the buzzer or knocked on the door. The letter was simply pushed through the letterbox. I emailed the address on the form and told them to check with the court and that the N245 had been submitted etc. Not heard anything back. Seems that bailiffs just carry on with their initial instructions regardless of what anyone tells them? Anyway, if they turn up again I am definitely not letting them in!

No but Horsham is where the warrant was issued and on N245 it very clearly states to send the form to the court that issued the warrant. Oxford had nothing to do with the judgement or the warrant. On the warrant itself it states that payment of the amount due £212.25 should be made to the payment centre at Oxford but of course I am not paying that, I am applying for suspension of the warrant and variation of the order. As if it is not all stressful enough there is no clarity on where the damned thing should be sent! I will send another form to Oxford and be done with it.

Too late. It already went to Horsham as per the instructions on the form. "send it to the court that issued the warrant" so that's what I did.

So the N245 went to the right place (Horsham) or you think it should have gone to Oxford? The court system seems to be a complete mess in this country

Just a quick update. I sent the N245 off to the court that issued the warrant (Horsham) but at the same time I emailed Brighton County Court because they handle all the admin for Horsham. I wanted to check that I was sending it to the right place. N245 states it should go to the court that issued the warrant. This morning I received an email from Brighton saying that That doesn't make sense to me because surely the court that made the order is the one that decides what to do with it? A bit concerned now because I don't want one court sending it to another and then another and so on.

I didn't think that was something you did? Anyway, the advice was sound it was just Lowell weren't playing ball in my case. They didn't even show at the first court hearing but the judge let it proceed to a second hearing when it should have been thrown out there and then. Just bad luck on my part.

Actually you did advise me about Lowell and I followed that advice. It is not a criticism, simply stating it doesn't always work in all cases. It is down to the individual to take responsibility. Advice from CAG is very much welcome but it doesn't guarantee a result only that odds are slightly more stacked in your favour. If it comes to court it then all hinges on which judge you get and what mood they are in.

It's been a rough couple of years for us. My wife had a high paying job in the city before she became ill and when she could no longer work we dropped around £4k per month from our income almost straight away. I was able to fill the gap for about a year but then I also hit a brick wall with dwindling customers and the debts started to mount up. We did contact all our creditors though which is why they have been so accommodating in their responses. My case with Lowell is one of the exceptions on this forum because I followed all the advice given here but it didn't work for me. I should have accepted their offer of a 50% discount right at the get go but I held out and ended up in court with a CCJ for the full amount plus court costs and a monthly payment I could not afford. It was a risk and just didn't pay off. The judge said the whole thing should never have come to court but, it it what it is and we just need to deal with it. My problems are further complicated by not really being able to leave my wife on her own. I won't go into details but it is just something I cannot do right now. The business I am working on with the NEA is a work from home one so it suits our circumstances very well. My goal is just to pay the bills for now and then anything else is a bonus. Our landlord has been superb, never once pressured us for rent and is not hassling us at all for the arrears. I think she knows we will pay it eventually and we do take very good care of the place but we definitely cannot fall any further behind. She does now at least have guaranteed rent every month. The housing part of UC doesn't pay the full amount of course but it helps a lot. As for council tax. Our local councillors are not that great really. It took three attempts to get an answer from any of them and although one did get involved it had no effect on the outcome. I have heard that councillors can intervene and stop court action if they want to. I have read about this happening for others. So I would say right now the main priority is utilities like gas/electric and water. We are with OVO for gas and electric and they have been pretty good although they have now passed the debt onto a DCA but there has been no talk of cutting us off etc. My plan with this is to deal with the normal account and the debts separately. So start paying what should be our normal £80 per month payment to OVO so the debt does not increase and then make an offer to the DCA taking our circumstances into account. It's laughable but we did apply to the OVO energy fund which is to help people with large debts but we were told "you do not have enough income to qualify"! With the water we have been put on the vulnerable people list so again I don't think we would be cut off but we really need to start making inroads into that debt too. All seems like quite a mountain to climb right now but I am sure we will get there eventually

Council tax were a nightmare. Had to get the local councillor involved but even then we still had to pay the full amount. It took endless submissions of I&E forms before they finally decided we could get a reduction but even then they insisted we pay the full amount of the arrears and took us to court. We had to use part of one months rent payment to avoid the bailiffs coming in. We managed to pay that bit back to our landlord but then got hit with another council tax bill and another threat of court action. Luckily my wife's disability payment started coming through and so we had to use most of that to pay £200 off the arrears each month. Now when we have finally got to the last payment, which is £154 and had our council tax reduced to £54 per month this Lowell thing drops on us Council tax were unwavering and just kept saying they had a statutory duty to collect despite us having no money and only UC as income. It's a ridiculous system. We just scraped by but there are plenty who cannot. I have started on the New Enterprise Allowance scheme which helps people who want to start their own business or just work for themselves and I do have better prospects further down the line so, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Just that right now we don't have any wriggle room with the finances. Anyway, let's see how it goes.

All our other creditors have been pretty good and have accepted a £1 per month token payment. I will send out the letters tomorrow but should I continue with the N245 or just contact Lowell and go from there? Thanks again for all your help. It makes things a lot less stressful when there are people out there who have been through this stuff and can offer advice.

We don't have money set aside for emergencies. If we had money we would have been paying Lowell and not ending up in this situation. As for my wife we have a surgery literally around the corner and the hospital is just a couple of roads away. She doesn't need the hospital and is on some quite strong medication at the moment, which helps a lot but means she can't really do a lot. DWP assessed her and have concluded she is not fit to work so at least that is something. Prescriptions are free although problematic as she needs a certain brand and it always needs to be ordered weeks in advance. I will definitely send a letter to Lowell. At the moment we owe a total of £4543 for rent, gas/electric and water. We have an amazing landlord and despite being three months behind...we held off signing up for benefits as long as possible and just sold everything we had to pay the bills, she has been brilliant about it all. I was trying to find a solution but at three months behind we just had to go to benefits. Even though we still owe three months rent at least the payments are now steady and we can try and pay off the arrears over time. Anyway thanks again for your help.

Thanks again for the help. Apparently our Universal Credit income is about £200 over the limit to get assistance with the N245 Application fee so will have to stump up the £50 for that. Also having filled in the N245 it seems that our outgoings exceed our income by approx £70 per month and that is if we don't take into account the things we should be paying but have not. Arrears on Gas, Electric and Water being the big ones. So that leaves me with the question of what can I put in box 11, offer of payment? To offer anything we would need to not pay something else. Any advice?

Post takes time and no guarantee they will even acknowledge receipt. They have however always answered emails but I will do both just to be on the safe side.