hi i was wondering if anyone could give me some advice please, Charles Anderson are currently arresting my partners wages for unpaid council tax, we recieved a letter yesterday and my partner phoned and spoke to them to be told they are also going in for a bank arrestment ontop of his wage arrestment are they entitled to do this? my partner told them he wont give them bank details to which they replied they do not need permission but surely under the data protection act his bank wont give them these details? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

In 2011, MBNA got a bit heavy with my husband by doubling his minimum payments even when he said he couldn't afford them. He got a phone call a week or so later from a company called Wise 2 Debt who claimed to be a government funded debt management company who would deal with the MBNA on his behalf and get the interest frozen and to ignore any letters from MBNA and they would deal with it if he just paid them a fixed amount every month. An agreement was made and the letters kept coming from MBNA but they were ignored, as advised. Eventually he rang MBNA who said that hey hadn't received any payments at all when he had paid Wise 2 Debt approx. £1500 over the best part of a year. He was served with a default notice which shouldn't be there as he was paying it but they weren't passing on the money. Wise 2 Debt shut down and re-opened as Lloyd Anderson. We wrote to the Ombudsmen who agreed that Lloyd Anderson should refund the money but we are still waiting over a year later since they told them this. If any one could advise me as to a) who is the authority on these matters and who can force them to cough up, and b) how would we go about getting the default notice removed from his credit record? Any advice much appreciated!

Hi all, After a long drawn out saga it's got to the point I feel I need to look for advice regarding Council Tax arrears, and money owed to North Lanarkshire Council for the year 2013/14. Long story short, after coming into hardship in September last year we fell behind on Council Tax and a Summary Warrant was produced for the arrears. We contacted the Council and set up a payment plan for the remaining balance which was around £770, including the statutory 10% penalty fee. All was well for a couple of months but we again began to struggle to the point we missed a payment and almost immediately a Charge For Payment was delivered by the Sheriff Officer along with a charge of £102 for his services. Great. But business as usual. We then contacted Charles Anderson who were pursuing the debt on behalf of NLC and paid them a minimum of £30 per month for three months as we were told as long as we made regular payments to the balance there would be no further action. Our fault for not requesting a payment plan set out in writing, lesson learned again, but after making three successive payments of £40, £30 and £40 (all we could afford at the time) an Earnings Arrestment Schedule was produced based on the arrears of the Summary Warrant from September, reflecting payments we made to NLC after the SW, the payments we made to Charles Anderson, the Sheriff's costs and another £70 charge for the Earnings Arrestment. The total due under the schedule stands at £560. All sounds pretty straight forward, arrears dealt with by a debt collector followed by a batch Summary Warrant, Charge for Payment and finally Earnings Arrestment, seems pretty by the book. What confuses matters is our Council Tax bill for that year was in dispute as my partner is registered disabled with a genetic condition she's had since birth. The arrears were ongoing and we tried our hardest to continue to make payments while the bill was in dispute. On June 24th, a day after the Earnings Arrestment was produced, NLC produced a revised bill for the 2013/14 year which included a Disabled Relief adjustment and said "reason for amendment: change of banding", meaning they sent us a revised bill with a total of £110.59 still outstanding (which by the way, if we'd have had settled months ago when all this was going on, we could have probably stretched and paid off instead of dealing with debt collectors, but that's a side note) Having contacted Charles Anderson on Friday last week, they said they would contact NLC to get the issue resolved. I figured this meant the bill was going to be adjusted, but how wrong could i be? They emailed me today to say they have spoken with NLC who confirmed, all payments so far taken into account, the amount outstanding is £110.59. They also said as a result, the Earnings Arrestment would still stand and they would enforce it with a view to reclaim the arrears and their fees. Can someone please explain to me how this works? We're off to speak with CAB on Wednesday on my next day off, but in the mean time, how can they enforce a Summary Warrant based on arrears that NLC has now confirmed in writing through their adjusted bill for the year was, in fact, wrong? Since our amount paid up to the date the Summary Warrant hasn't changed, and the Council Tax bill was amended and the Disabled Relief backdated to the start of the year, the SW therefore reflects an incorrect amount, the 10% penalty would also be wrong based on the original arrears, and the Charge for Payment and Earnings Arrestment were based on the Summary Warrant. Charles Anderson are yet to reply to me questioning what their fees consist of, as surely they can't confirm the change in arrears and still enforce the Earnings Arrestment for £560? And if they did, surely that would imply their fees would have to make up the difference between the £110.59 both they and NLC have confirmed are the arrears and the £560 they seek through the Earnings Arrestment? Tearing my hair out over this one. My understanding is that the Summary Warrant should be deemed void as the Council have backdated the Disabled Relief and effectively shot themselves in the collective feet? I hope someone who knows more than me can explain this to me, and my legal position. I'm not in any way trying to avoid paying the arrears, I am however unhappy about the fact that Charles Anderson still want my work to pay them £560 based on the original outstanding arrears of £400, which has now been confirmed to be wrong. Help please