bailiff advice pleeaase

[purplehazer]

hi all, hope ur all well and stress free unlike me lol,

could i get to the point? i had a bailiff come round my house and my father had let him in as he doesnt speak very good english and had trouble understanding him, the bailiff was from the sheriffs officw, high court? so i come downstairs and he told me he was from the high court and he's here to recover an outstanding debt with an insurance company, and the bill was 7k!! i was bricking myself thinking what should i do?! it is not my house, its my fathers did they stil have a right to make list of what to take etc and threaten to come back and take whatever they needed to cover costs? anyway after all that hoohaa they said the only way we could stop any further action on that day was to pay a 2k fee! which we paid and now currently on a payplan on 65quid a month? i really need some advice off anybody that can help on how i could deal with this or bring the monthly payments down to a minimum? i didnt recieve any letters from them asking for payment or anything, apparently the court sent me a letter to go in and discuss it with the insurance company there too? please get back to me if u could help with anything, thanking you in advance

[rebel11]

Hi purp

 

Welcome to CAG

 

The guys will be happy to advise as soon as they are available.

 

Thread moved to the correct forum.

 

Are you in Scotland?

[purplehazer]

hi rebel, no im from manchester but the sheriffs office is based in scotland i think, they dont offer a phone service, strictly email or by post, thank u rebel

[bluedogx]

You need to give us more information.

 

Who and where is the insurance company based?

Where did they take court action?

 

What paperwork have you received?

 

B

[IdaInFife]

as above - we do not have baliffs in scotland

But you have certain firms in england that use sheriffs in england have moved to bailiffs forum

[ploddertom]

The Sherriffs Office is based in Crawley and are predominantly High Court Enforcement Officers.

 

http://www.thesheriffsoffice.com/

 

Is this who you mean.

 

PT

[brassnecked]

So someone from a firm called The Sherriffs Office called, and as per ploddertom I think they are the ones based in Crawley, as the debt is £7K and the fee demanded was £2K they will have been attending as HCEO's

 

No they have no right levy on your fathers property, and they know this, but may well have relied on the name Sherriffs Office and over reference to the High Court to impress someone into compliance whose English is limited. Misrepresentation of powers is endemic and he shouldn't have let them in, ianyway they had no right of entry.

 

If they have levied and seized your fathers goods, then he needs to swear a Statutory Declaration as to his ownership of everything in the house, also stating that nothing in or around the premises belong to the named debtor.and send a notarised copy to the Sherriffs Office, and hand another to the HCEO when they call back. This i believe would invalidate the levy as it was on third party goods, and should void the £2K fee (others will know more about this)

 

Looks like you ignored a County Court summons, from the insurance company, and they gained judgment by default, as you didn't defend the claim. this was then handed to the Sherrifs Office for enforcement.

 

You have paid the fees of £2k, and they have put you on an unaffordable to you plan of £65 per month. That £2k will go straight into the beer tokens fund for the Sherriff I fear , as it will be purely fees, with nothing off the principal debt imho, It would take you 9 years to clear the principle at that rate of repayment, longer after these people have kept calling and added more fees.

 

This recap is purely to clarify and make your original post clearer and confirm the details.

 

Having given the cautionary note, all is not lost, and other Caggers far more knowledgeable than me will be able to advise the best way to tackle these sharks

Edited November 5, 2011 by brassnecked

[ploddertom]

What date did the HCEO attend? Do you have a list of the goods seized, if so can you describe them exactly as Notice of Seizure says? Were you given a breakdown of the charges they applied, if so can you list them?

 

PT

[purplehazer]

Hi all, hope u are all well and stress free sorry for the extremely late reply, its been a tough year, been on and off work just not stable, iv managed to bring my payments down to 20quid a month due to my circumstances. I wana thank all of you for your replies and brassneck that's exactly what they said when they knocked on my dads house who I mentioned earlier does not speak fluent english like u and me, I'm not working atm and I'm finding it very hard to come up with the payment at the end of every month, I really need to know what I can do before all my hair starts turning grey!!