Hi if my min payment is £100, do i have to pay it in a lump sum before payment date or can i pay it in multiples like £50 on one week and £50 another week..as long as its paid by due date? I ask because I accidentally paid £50 in to barclaycard, but can only afford to pay £50 more to make it £100. Thanks

Hi there I wonder if you can help with this. It seems fishy to me. My fiancee is a support worker (supporting disabled people who have their own tenancies) for an agency on a zero hours employment contract. All of her shifts involve supporting people in their own homes for the local city council (in Scotland, if that's relevant). On average, she works around 37 hours per week (sometimes a lot more), and does additional "sleeping" shifts (paid at a set rate) when they are available (on average one or two of these per week) My fiancee has been with the agency full time for around 18 months. The agency routinely emails all employees every week to say "You have been booked for shifts this week, so please check the online system" or "All shifts have now been allocated" but recently the weekly email included the line "All shifts over 6 hours moving forward will include a 30 minute unpaid break in line with the Councils working time directive." No other information was provided, and we have emailed the agency twice for further information but no reply. There are several problems with this: Firstly, my fiancee supports people with various physical and learning disabilities who explicitly, as per their care plans, cannot be left alone in their homes (or indeed alone in the community) for safety reasons. She works one to one with the person she is supporting, and no other staff members are available to relieve her. Some of them may inadvertently hurt themselves, or are vulnerable to abuse, or suffer from potentially fatal epileptic seizures. It is impossible for my fiancee to take a "break" from her work in the legal sense, and if she left anyone on their own it would be a clear case of a breach of duty of care and serious negligence. It should be noted that none of the Council's own support worker employees are also unable to take a break, as there is nobody available to cover their duties while they leave the site. As for the issue of compliance with the Council's policy/Working Time Regulations, the majority of her shift patterns never complies with the legal guidelines. For example, she is often booked for a PM shift finishing at 22:00, then a sleep shift, rolling over onto an AM shift starting at 07:00 and sometimes working well into the early afternoon. This pattern can repeat several times in a 7 day period. In addition, it seems like her pay conditions have been changed without her being asked to sign an updated contract. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated at this early stage. It sounds very wrong to me, given the circumstances of her work. Thanks a lot!

The main chaos was all about the cowboy builder to ask the facilitating payment fraud just after the garden wall he demolished in his plan. Make long story short ( go to the paragraph 14 ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Claim Case registered in March 2014. * However, Halifax assigned its panel*claims management company (LAS) 7 July 2014 handle my case. * on 7*July 2014 The loss assessors provided by LAS confirmed the two hours*appointment commencing at*4pm,*10 July 2014. * LAS emailed me with offer*£65.01*(they actively*already deducted the excess fee). This amount is very unreasonable, and I had rejected it and made request to fix the damaged. Later on, they made second offer £523.97,*I rejected it again*because I just want the damaged got fixed. * I complained to Halifax about the surveyor*non-professional behaviours because I was been advised this is essential two hours slot appointment, but*he came late nearly*1 hours, and work less than 30 minutes then leave the job without some damaged check such as leaking in shed. * On 12 August 2014, I had contacted Halifax to have follow up my complaint, and requested of another company to have re-assessment, and I had clearly request to fix the damaged by insurance and disagreed LAS suggestion to use the claim case to make a money. I also make encounter offer another £500 back to Halifax to have damaged fixed. (voice recording: Call162644.wav) * I had requested to send me the official letter if they unable to fix, then I can escalate this to ombudsman. I contacted them. However, they had no response and even no setup the complaint. * On 20 Nov 2014, I had contacted Halifax home insurance and insisted insurer to fix it, and disagree their intention to close the case. ** Insurer had closed my case, I complaint they should not close the case without my consent and should not ignored my request to keep it open until getting fix the damaged. * Finally, Halifax appointed the beta-coveXX to do the survey becasue they know they are in wrong position. I had received the email from*Beta-coveXX's Inspection and Claim reported in 25 Jan 2016, and contacted with Beta-coveXX(Mandy) about the details of*repair tasks, and she sent me the three documents which are*authorization Mandate,*Conditions of Work and*Approval Letter Nick on*27 Jan 2016. In 25 Feb 2016, I had returned three documents with signature and*with bank*cheque (22Feb2016-slip.jpg) by post to*Beta-coveXX after all parties*( Halifax/ Beta-coveXX and I) had clarified the work details. I found the cheque bank in at 26 March 2016.* * During the period from January 2016 to February 2016 , I would like emphasis that I decided to give up some tasks such as shed roof felt and its leaking*rather than reach an*impasse that Halifax only*accepted the full wall cover, and the rest of building tasks they had "successfully" avoid responsibility. * In Mid March 2016,*I was given the*Beta-coveXX staff (Pxx) mobile number to find out*when the work schedule commencing. Original work was*scheduled in early May 2016, however Pxx contacted me in late*April 2016*about the brick type issue*which*he cannot source it (this first type was proposed in 21 April 2016 with proposal date), and he requested to have second type of brick option which I had confirmed in 28 April 2016. Therefore, the schedule were finally*postpone to 25*July 2016 ( 5 days work). I had chasing*up him about the work schedule since Mid March 2016. In afternoon of 25 July 2016, after Beta-coveXX staff completed the few hours wall brick demolish, and Pxx asked £160+vat for brick release from sheffield if I want them to continue tomorrow work. I complaint this to halifax and claim team staff had struggled for an hour and finally agreed to pay it. * In 26 July 2016, I found no brick delivery, and no man to resume the work. In 28 July 2016, I contacted Beta-coveXX, they tried to be disappeared. Finally, Halifax transfer my call to talk to them and find out they had not placed the order before 26 July 2016, now told me the delivery will only take few days. Finally, I was been told this is available 9 August 2016, wasting 14 days.* * I had complaint the poor qualities of service provided Beta-coveXX, and cheating behaviour. I also requested*Halifax appoint another company to carry out the job.*Also reported the no wall causing the two*trespassing cases*issue, and requested to have temporarily wall built and cctv. However, Complaint Manager Mxx Wxxx decided to give me £100 but I*made encounter-offer to Halifax £200 (double of their compensation), and at least re-insist the temporarily wall and or cctv. However Mxx Wxxx insisted close my case and ignore my request to keep the case open until the damaged get fix. The same request I had made to Stuart, however he rejected it. * Complaint Manager ( Sxx Rxx) confirmed he*took*the decision from Personal Claim Consultant report to provide the his final decision letter. * Personal Claim Consultant( Dxx Txx) confirmed he took*the survey report from Regent Group to create his report*.* * Regent Group (Rxxx) confirmed he do “NO TEST”. He rejected to accept the £523 pounds to take over the rebuild work, and said non-sense offer. * My original complaint setup is 26 July 2016, which handled by Mxx Wxxx and she insisted to ignore my request to keep the case open and deliberate to close the case. When I complaint this again, Sxx Rxx setup as NEW case for same complaint to take advantage of 8 weeks rule setup and not accept my request to re-open the original case. During Sxx Rxx time off, I was advised to they can do the investigation more than 8 weeks, and I am not allow to put this case further (Ombudsman) until they finished the case. Finally, they took 12 weeks to issue the report to me. In fact, Mxx Wxxx, Sxx Rxx and Dxx Txx they had taken their holiday plan and leave my case aside. * The extra entities and process such as*Personal*Claim*Consultant and Regent Group, which is redundant, and interference the case.* The location of wall is now open, but*I was been*advised*by claim team staff*I have to*accompany*with Personal Consultant and Survey company*(appointed*Regent Group), otherwise dismissed my case. This caused me wasted two half days off. * In 17*Nov 2016,*Jxx from Claim department actively*proposed me to have cash*settlement by using my own*constructor, provided me the website by email**as well*as guide to find the contractors to*fulfil*their*cash settlement request (Voice Recording*from 16:34).*She understood this is difficult to find the contractor in the wintertime, and fully aware it might take 6 months and agreed this can be last to*April 2017 to have solution. * In 21 Nov 2016, *Jxx confirmed only one quotation need*(voice recording from*9:39); She confirmed Halifax cannot provided*a settlement offer even they had*estimate( voice recording from12:55). * In 31 Jan 2017, all in sudden Jxx*can make up a settlement offer and set the offer only 5 days(, then close case at 6 *Feb 2017 if I not responded.*I had responded*to her email sent on 5 Feb 2015*with quotation they requested, which fulfil what she promised in the phone (17 and 21 Nov 2016).However, afterwards Katie( help Jxx) responded she would*close*my case if they had not heard from me next 14 working days.*Next response that is final response from Natasha agreed to follow my decision the case escalate to Financial Ombudsman. The whole case last nearly 3 years.* Ombudsman response, they offered me £19XX + brick delivery is fair. It is usual the Halifax can have better rate from their business parter Beta-coveXX, the total is £39xx is lower than your quotes. Deduct the brick cost which is £18XX, the rest is £19XX...correct. Ombudsman reckoned the delay causing down to me because I had not contacted them for a while. I am going to response to Ombudsman, and request them to have review the document because the investigator have preconceived opinions which caused the ombudsman believe I actively ask for cash settlement, and I had not pay the excess, and delay the case myself. Just before ombudsman write the final decision letter, the investigator still ask me had you paid the excess( your duty)? Can I use the following ground to challenge ombudsman decision? (1)reasonable time to fix? (2)reasonable skill to fix? (3) make up premier brick cost under the business partnership? which is 1.4 times higher than the retails price you can walk-in to pay, and using this cost figure to reduce the amount you can have to fix it yourself. (4)reasonable business behaviour in Halifax to make the different offers for the same wall repairing, in my case, firstly offer me £65, then £523 and now £19xx + brick/block you fix it yourself. (5)reasonable behaviour to force customer to accept the offer otherwise close my case without notification. (6)reasonable to close my case even I had insisted to leave it open everytime they asked? (7)reasonable to sub contract the work to another contractor and this contractor to subcontract again to another one-man band without my consent/ notification? Pxx is not staff of Beta-coveXX, and the man demolished the wall is got the contract from Pxx. What I want it is only Halifax assign the repairing work to another builder to fix it. Much appreciated if you can give me the advice or your point of view. thank you!

Hi my okd friends I need an EXTREMELY URGENT advice from you good people. Wished to refurbish the old house after 30 years which meant change of everything including wiring and water system etc. I employed a firm of archirects who with a QS sent tenders out and as the result we instructed a firm of contractors to do the job. After a while architects left the scene so we employed a building controller in their replace to interact with builders. There was to be a contract drawn by QS for "minor work project". Unfortunately a copy of it was sent to me last week! As I had signed a Letter of Intent, I assumed that all terms and condictions in darft of contrcat which I has seen would suffice. The builders went throught demolition phase, and should start on construction. The payment is as the follows: The builder gives a list of work and expenditure to QS. He without checking to see whether is adequate or the work is carried out, accepts the payment due and forwards builders' invoice. The building controller we appointed acts in place of architect but her responsibilty has been limited to signing the stage Cetrificate - meaning that the work was done accordingl to existing plans and drawings!. Despite all those safe guards at a lot of expense we now find ourselves in a very bad posiotion. Builder has not followed an iota of terms and conditions in contract, yet keeps naming it as a tool to ex-communicate us and carry on mis-leading the QS and the Controller. The very first part of construction has run into big trouble that he wants through his "uknown to us" sub-contractor charge us for electrical works BUT...he quoted a figure of nearly £50,000.00!(should be max £10k with most expensive products in market)) for a job including rewiring of 5 bedroom very average and meduim size house. They do not specify the products listed nor correct number of products to be used. The list I provided keeps being thrown away. Thus has been going on for past 2.5 months. Meanwhile I amconcerned that they have started to attempt with same approach with other tasks within project. Because of us trying to get a proper & accurate quote to give them the go ahead, they have shut down the site for past 8 days, because of health & safety regs we are not allowed to go in. We finally persuaded all those involved to have a meeting at the site in 2 days time. Obviously we can not work together. We have paid 2 invoices so far which partly may be a loss to us - no hope of getting some back. BUT WHAT AM I TO DO WHEN AT THE TABLE, WE REACH THE END. CAN THEY KICK ME OUT AND KEEP HOLDING THE HOUSE UNTIL WHEN? IS THERE SOMEONE, AN EXPERT I CAN TAKE WITH ME TO PROTECT ME, ASSESS WHAT THEY HAVE DONE ON THAT DAY? I AM SO WORRIED THAT THIS MAY TAKE A LONG COURT BATTLE. I JUST WANT TO PAY FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE FAIRLY. OR RETRIEVE PART OF MONEY I HAVE UNJUSTLY PAID. THE MAIN QUESTION IS: WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN AS THEY ARE THUGS. AND HOW CAN I GET THE HOUSE BACK TOMORROW? I do hope there is someone out there who can urgently advise me. Really can not afford to go to lawyers - lost a lot on architects and builders and so forth already, and I am currently left with a shell of the house living in a mice infested flat somewhere else. Please help. Sophie

Back in May I parked at Brockholes on a bank holiday, i hadnt been there before, it was full and as i pulled in before the car park there was a grass bank, where someone pulled out so i left the car there, spent an hour in the visitor centre and so on, then left, i didnt see anyone paying nor any ticket machines anywhere, nor any signs. The notice was dated 11 June 2 weeks and 2 days later. I wrote back to them explaining the above and they replied saying there are huge signs everywhere. .but without driving back i wouldnt know so i asked them for a pic or diagram they refused to give me anything said they were not obliged to do this. Is there anything i can do with this or do i just need to pay?

Hi All, I'm renting a property short term for 6-7 months and have electric supplied by Scottish Power. Initially the Direct Debit amount was set to £50, which quickly became apparently as being massively over-estimated. I generally only use around 3kWh per day, so the actual bill is next to nothing, and in 3 months I have now accumulated £70 in credit. I managed to reduce my direct debit via my online account, which was a struggle in itself. If I reduced it by more than £4 at once, it demanded an upfront payment and estimated I would be £6000 in debt at my yearly review. I eventually got it down to £25 which seemed sensible, though received an e-mail a week later saying it had been reset to £50. I can no longer change it via account as I have exceeded the number of changes per year. I phoned Scottish Power today to ask them to reduce it but the customer advisor told me the lowest they could do is £37. Seems a bit daft. Even at £37, I'll still be accumulating a significant credit amount per month, in addition to the £70 already sitting in my account. I'm only expecting to be in the property another 3 months so it seems daft to continue throwing money into the account when it's obvious they're just going to have to refund it to me at account close. Anyone any advise or how to deal with it sensible in the present? Thanks

Hi All, long time since I have been on here, I see that advice may have changed from ignore PCN's. My daughter and her friend parked at the lcoal Sainsburys that allows 30 minutes free parking. What they didn't realise was that you still had to print a ticket to put in the windscreen showing £0 paid and a 30 minutes time. They both got PCN's, both tickets show the time which was under the 30 minutes, the PCN for failing to display a ticket. I advised them to ignore the letters, they have now received one of the 'pretend' Bailiff letters and the friend is afraid of getting CCJ's etc, I have advised that won't happen unless you go to court and then fail to pay. Do you think it is worth writing to the Parking Company saying that they were within the free 30 minutes so no loss has been incurred? I believe they both received a NTO and neither have kept a receipt from the shopping they did. Thanks all.

The minimum wage would rise to £8 an hour over the course of the next parliament if Labour wins the general election, the party has pledged. Leader Ed Miliband said it was "not good enough" that one in five people in the UK were on low pay. But the Conservatives said they had already delivered an above-inflation increase as, from October, the minimum wage will rise from £6.31 to £6.50. The minimum wage for adult workers was £5.80 at the time of the last election. Chancellor George Osborne suggested, in an interview with BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson in January, that the minimum wage would rise to £7 an hour in 2015 to return the level it was at before the economic downturn. 'Wealth creators' The rate is recommended by the Low Pay Commission, which is overseen by Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable. "By crashing the economy, Labour made everyone poorer and they haven't learnt their lesson” Sajid Javid Conservative minister Government sources have suggested that the rate would probably rise to £8 by the end of the next Parliament if it continued on current trends. The TUC has called for the minimum wage to increase to £10 an hour. Mr Miliband announced the policy in interviews with the Sunday Mirror and Observer newspapers as Labour's annual conference got under way in Manchester. The party says the £1.50 per hour increase would be worth £60 a week, or £3,000 a year, for the lowest paid. "Too often people think that politics doesn't care about them," the Labour leader told the Sunday Mirror. "They are the wealth creators just as much as the top entrepreneurs and the top business people. And we've got to reward them." Tory cabinet minister Sajid Javid: "Ed Miliband would make people worse off." He said the party would show "how we can become a country that rewards hard work once again". In the Observer interview he added: "It is not good enough for us that one in five people in our country go out to work, make their contribution and are in low pay." But Conservative Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said people would not take "lectures" from Labour on helping people on low pay. "By crashing the economy, Labour made everyone poorer and they haven't learnt their lesson," he said. "Ed Miliband would make people worse off with the same failed policies that got us into a mess in the first place - more wasteful spending, more borrowing and higher taxes." 'Dangerous' The Liberal Democrats said the best way to help the low paid was to cut their taxes. "Labour has refused to back tax cuts for working people," a spokesperson added. Meanwhile, Mark Littlewood from free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs said the move would be "dangerous" for the economy. The national minimum wage is the lowest hourly rate at which workers must legally be paid, although there are lower levels for workers aged 18-20, those under 18 and those working on an apprentice scheme. It was introduced by Labour in 1997 and the level is reassessed annually by the Low Pay Commission, which then makes a recommendation to ministers. October's above-inflation increase of 19p (3%) - announced in March - will be the first time in six years that the rise is higher than inflation. The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will go up by 10p to £5.13 an hour, a 2% increase. The rate for those aged 16 and 17 will rise by 7p to £3.79, also a 2% rise. Apprentices will earn an extra 5p an hour, taking their wages to at least £2.73. In August the Consumer Price Index rate of inflation was 1.5%. BBC So we could see people taking home less because they will move into the income tax bracket or less because employers will reduce hours or even less still as they will be made redundant because some employers won't be able to afford the rise.

Hi, my female friend/girl friend paid to stay in a Hotel, she doesn't drive. She asked me to come and see her as she was having trouble at home etc, she said there was parking there and that as she had booked a twin room, I could stay if I wanted to, she told me that her booking informed her there was parking available for guests, the tricky part is one section Booking conditions: it says free private parking is available on site (reservation is not needed) and then another part it says, A) there is no check in desk, remote door access codes are given, B)All reservations will be provided with 1 free car parking space. Guests must provide the car registration when they complete their reservation using the Special Requests box, or before arrival using the contact details found on the booking confirmation. Additional parking spaces must provide car registrations and an additional costs will be applicable. I have told them this, I even showed the copy of her booking, I was only there for approx 15 minutes, the company is NPE Parkingprotection. They say I was there for 30 minutes and I will have to pay the charge, All correspondance has been by email and now they want my address and if I don't give it they will obtain it from DVLA... What should I do as I only have today to pay it before it goes up to £100 then more.....

Hi, Does anyone know how long after a creditor send a Default Notice do they have to wait before they can register the Default with the CRA's? Thanks.