My ex has left me with a £6000 debt secured on my home. He didn't pay it and I had to go to court to stop getting the house repossessed. I have copies of his bank statements to prove that the loan paid off his credit cards and overdrafts. The judge said I'd been conned and should sue him. What are my chances of getting a CCJ against him? If I do and he doesn't pay me, would I be able to make him bankrupt? How would the OR view it as my ex is on the mortgage, even though he has no money in the house, I paid the deposit and I am making all the mortgage payments. Thanks

They are not court appointed bailliffs and don't have the same powers as them. They use threats and intimidation. Yes, the DCAs fees are still payable but if the council takes the debt back there are less of them. Sorry if I didn't make myself totally clear.

Good luck. It's not all your fault at all, it's the system and the nasty way it is administered. There should be much more regulation on DCAs and protection for the victim. Even the police don't know the law and aren't any use in this situation. Make a payment and stick to your guns otherwise it will cost you a fortune.

You can take them to county court but you would have to claim that the fees were "unreasonable". I want to claim my charges back too but I'm waiting till the whole amount is paid off, so I hadn't really looked at the website. Sorry!

Ooops! Sorry about that It is called Bailliff Advice Online though, try a search on that

I have got their statement of account and the only thing different from my records is the amount of the original debt.

I don't see why your council wanted the payment in full immediately. They are not court appointed bailliffs they are just a Debt Collecting Agency. 1. Don't let them in your house. If you let them in once, then they can break in whenever they want. 2. They can only come during office hours, not at night or weekends or evenings. 3. Start paying the council direct, use their on line payment system. Once they have accepted payments then you should be OK to pay them direct. Pay what you can afford and keep it up, make a payment every month. 4. Write to the council and tell them what you are doing, they will probably be quite nasty and say you have to pay Jacobs, but you don't, they should take the debt back. 5. Don't make any arrangements with Jacobs and be firm with them, they will be very threatening but keep making payments through the council 6. DCA add charge after charge. All they are doing is making their money through people who do pay. They make nothing out of people who don't pay them. The council don't pay them any fees. It's all very scary, I know but be brave and direct everything through the council.

I have been paying some council tax arrears and I thought they were nearly paid off, down to the last £400. Suddenly, I get a bill from the council for that property and the arrears are still over £1000! I started paying through Phillips DCA and then realised the charges they were applying were horrendous, so I started paying direct to the council throught their online payment system. I have statements from Phillips showing the original debt and all my payments to them and all the confirmations from the epay thing which I have sent to them. Can they suddenly add more to the original debt? Thanks

This website should help you claim back charges www.pilesadvice.co.uk

I wonder if anybody could give me any advice. My ex is threatening to go bankrupt. We still have the mortgage in our joint names and his name is still on the deeds. I am living in the house with our 17 month old daughter and I pay all the payments. My mum loaned us the money for the deposit and she has put a charge on the house so that he can't get any of that back. There is also a secured loan in our joint names which I am making the repayments on. I get £38 per week from him through the CSA. Where do I stand if he does go bankrupt? Thanks

I wonder if anybody can give me any reassurance on this please. My ex-partner insisted on taking out a secured loan to pay off his credit cards and overdrafts as he thought this was the best way to do it. Then in February this year he left me and our 5 month old baby! I believe he paid the March payment but he hasn't paid the loan since! I know I am jointly responsible as I signed the loan agreement too and there is no way I can actually force him to pay the arrears or the monthly payments. The CSA is now taking maintenance payments from his wages so I can actually afford to pay the loan and the arrears. Endeavour are taking me to court to get me evicted for the arrears of about £650. My solicitor says that as long as I make an offer to pay even if it is only £20 per month then the court won't evict us. I am going to write to them and offer them £50 per month on top of monthly payment. Do you think they will accept this and will this stop the court from evicting me and my now 1 year old daughter from our home. I pay the mortgage and this isn't in arrears. Thanks

There are a lot of people in your situation. Go to Welcome to Tax Credit Casualties (TCC) for help.

I have gone through all the letter stages and taken Nationwide to court. They submitted a defence and the court sent me the AQ to fill in. I have returned this and am waiting to hear from the court. Has anybody else got as far as this? Or further? Will they request a stay or will I get a court date? Thanks

I read a bit further and the company belongs to the Britannia Building Society. Thanks for your help

Thank you very much for that, it is very reassuring. The first mortgage payment he is going to miss is due on Tuesday, so I will write to them this weekend. The mortgage company is called Mortgage Agency Services Number Five, which isn't the company our mortgage advisor set us up with! The original company transfered our mortgage in September 2006. Thanks again

Hi everybody I wonder if anybody can help me. I have a six month old baby and my partner has left us. I have been on maternity pay but I return to work on Monday part time. I get tax credits and council tax benefit. I can afford to pay all my household bills, etc. The problem is that my ex-partner is refusing to pay the mortgage and I can't afford to pay it. All he says he will pay is the statutory minimum which won't make any difference to me, obviously, as they will deduct this off my tax credits. I can't get housing benefit as I'm not renting and Income support won't pay the interest as I earn too much (!). Is there any other benefit that I could claim or is there any way to get him to pay the mortgage. After all the house is still in both our names and it's still his investment. It's hardly likely that I could sell the house before they repossess it. Any help would be great. Thanks

I asked Nationwide for my statements for the past 6 years and what I actually got was a computer printout. My problem is that it doesn't say bank charges or returned direct debit or anything like that, just a load of abbreviations. I think I have worked out that where it says UQ UO it means unorthorised overdraft fee and UQ UM is the interest charged but I don't have any idea what the others mean. Anybody have any ideas about UQ GM or UQ DD (that could be returned Direct Debit fee). I would like to get it right for the courts. Thank you

Don't expect them to worry about you, they will take the charges even if you have a zero balance, which will put you overdrawn. They will then charge you interest on this. Then they will charge you for being above your overdraft limit.

Can you believe it? Egg finally sent the paperwork on Wednesday! They also returned our cheque. The original SAR was sent 2 February. Took them 5 months.

I got the address from here originally: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/egg/3932-egg-registered-office-address.html

Now that I have successfully reclaimed my bank charges of £2100 from Barclays, my partner has let me try to claim his charges off Egg but we have run into problems already! We sent off the SAR with his cheque for £10 to Jenny Gordon, Data Protection Manager at Waterhouse Square, London and, well over 40 days later, we have received nothing. The cheque hasn't even been cashed. Have we sent it to the wrong place? Can anybody suggest what we should do next? Thanks

Thank you, Welshman, your help has been invaluable.

Panic over! The settlement letter arrived today! £2100! They are paying in full! Thanks everybody! Sorry about the exclamation marks, I'm just so pleased. Donation on its way as soon as cheque arrives.

Panic! I have a court date on 2nd February and I haven't heard a thing from Barclays yet. I know they have received all the paperwork which I sent in December, shouldn't they have got in touch by now?

I sent off my court bundle last week but now I have seen all the articles on the bbc web site about tonights Money Programme "Are penalty charges bank robbery?" Will I be able to use any of the material from the bbc website stating the actual cost of bouncing cheques is probably £4.50 and DD is £2.50? I am really looking forward to seeing this programme tonight! BBC NEWS | Special Reports | money_programme for anybody who hasn't seen it yet.