***Please Help...Bank Arrestment***

[star55]

Hello Please Help

 

I went to draw some money from my bank account this afternoon and was horrified to find out that it said refused. I found this a bit strange as when I checked the balance it said there was £400, so I tried to do the same thing with my joint savings account which I have with my partner, and it said the same thing ''refused''

 

So I contacted my bank and was told that there is a ''hold'' on both accounts for unpaid council tax which is collect through sherriff officers, I asked my bank to give me that contact details for this company and they said that I should have had notification from them in the post (checked when I came in about 20 mins ago and there is no letter).

 

I explained to my bank that I need money from the account to pay my mortgage and to get to work and they said that if I go to my branch they should be able to give me money providing that there is enough money to cover the debt, which there isn't as the debt is for £2000 and I only have around £600 in both accounts. The bank then said that I should contact the debt company(which I will do first thing in the morning.)

 

I am really at my wit's end as I have a mortgage to pay and the council tax is in my name and they have arrested my savings account which is joint with my partner (can they do this?).

 

About 3 months ago I offered to pay the debt back to the company at £50 per month as this is all I can afford untill my circumstances changed and they refused to accept this from me.

 

I would be grateful for any advice anyone can give me.

[Guest NATTIE]

you're in Scotland so here is a link related to it from the Gowna Law Centre

Benefits and bank arrestment in Scotland | free legal help from Govan Law Centre, Glasgow, UK

[star55]

you're in Scotland so here is a link related to it from the Gowna Law Centre

Benefits and bank arrestment in Scotland | free legal help from Govan Law Centre, Glasgow, UK

 

thanks read a few things there , but can only see arresting your bank account on benifits , anyone else helppp

[star55]

What am also asking is , are they by law got to send me a letter stated they are going to arrest my bank account , or do they just do this ??

 

i have not received anything about the arrestment

 

 

 

any help on this ?

[buck rogers]

they only have to prove they sent it

[lookinforinfo]

The arrestment cannot take effect until you have a copy. As you have not been

handed them, they have to be sent to you either registered or recorded delivery.

If they arrive by ordinary mail, the copy has not been recognised as being served.

So if it comes by ordinary mail, you must keep the envelope, and apply to the court to have the arrestment quashed.

It is also important that you, or anyone else in the house does not sign for any

registerd or recorded mail in the meantime.

Below is the ruling-

 

If a schedule of arrestment has not been personally served on an arrestee, the arrestment shall have effect only if a copy of the schedule is also sent by registered post or the first class recorded delivery service to-

(a) the last known place of residence of the arrestee; or

(b) if such a place of residence is not known, or if the arrestee is a firm or corporation, to the arrestee's principal place of business if known, or, if not known, to any known place of business of the arrestee,

and the sheriff officer shall, on the certificate of execution, certify that this has been done and specify the address to which the copy of the schedule was sent.

 

..-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is help on appealing against the arrestment-

 

This rule applies to a summary application in which a time to pay direction may be applied for under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987.

(2) A defender may apply for a time to pay direction and, where appropriate, for recall or restriction of an arrestment-

(a) by appearing and making the appropriate motion at a diet fixed for hearing of the summary application;

(b) except where the warrant of citation contains a shorter period of notice than the period of notice to be given to a defender under rule 3.6(1)(a) or (b), as the case may be, of the Ordinary Cause Rules, by completing and returning the appropriate portion of Form 5 to the sheriff clerk at least seven days before the first diet fixed for hearing of the summary application or the expiry of the period of notice or otherwise, as the case may be in the warrant of citation; or

© by application to the court at any stage before final decree.

(3) The sheriff may determine an application under paragraph (2)(b) or © without the defender having to appear.

 

I took the articles from this website- you will have to download it-

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=appealing+against+bank+arrestment&hl=en&lr=&cr=countryUK|countryGB&start=10&sa=N

[star55]

thanks very much for the info , thats good news as i have not received anything from them about the arrestment

[lookinforinfo]

Hi Star. Sorry about your problem. I know what it is like since bailiffs recently

hit my account with an unauthorised payment and left me with no money for a while.

 

I know nothing about Scottish law, other than it is different from English law. I had

never heard of arrestment before reading your post. That being said, the url I

posted [not sure why it didn't highlight] covers a lot of info on arrestment.

 

Apparently, even after you are served with the papers, the banks can still refuse

to hand over your money. And a second Court case will have to be heard [called

a diet] in order to force the banks to comply. I imagine this is to give their

customer [in this case you] the opportunity to attend the Court hearing and put

forward an acceptable offer to pay off the outstanding rates. But I may be wrong

on that. The moral is -do not fall out with your banks at the moment! Speak to

them and tell them you have not yet been served with the papers, and find out

what they will do when they are told to transfer your funds to the Court. will they

do so, or force the Court to call a second hearing?

 

Explain to your banks the result of giving the money all at one go. It will obviously

throw your finances into chaos with the added complication of not knowing when

the Court Order will be reapplied to collect the outstanding amount -around £1400.

Lay it on. You might get some sympathy, but they will not want the Courts dipping into your account-that's their job.lol

 

Talk to them about opening another account so that you can continue to have your salary etc paid in there-ask their advice on that since I imagine your accounts

could be frozen for a while. One of the disadvantages of not being served with

the papers.

 

Talk to the Court and ask for their advice, explaining that you did offer a repayment scheme that you feel the Court would have accepted had it been put to them-and

ask what you should do now. How can you apply to the Court to have the arrestment lifted, since you had no idea there was a Court case at all, otherwise you would have attended and put your offer to the Court at the time. Probably

better that you phone them, rather than go in person, just in case they serve the

papers on you there.

 

This post is probably already too long. So good luck and keep us posted.

With luck someone who knows a bit more about arrestment might read this post.

[star55]

hi all , i.ve spoken to the council , the court , the debt collector , my bank and to nationdebtline scotland and there is really nothing you can do about it when your bank account gets arrested even if you have a joint bank account , so my advice to people who have arrears outstanding with council tax is pay them and if your got a arrangment to pay them stick with it , if you dont stick with it , they'll arrest your account or wages ,

 

i know its my fault i left it so long in paying them , and now am paying for it

they will not release money from my account for living nor to pay my mortage which is now due to be paid,

 

all i can say is the debt collectors are a bunch of AR**S WIPES whom they will not accept another payment plan for me to repay them.

 

So now i'm left with no money till pay day now

 

 

but thanks to all who have tried to help me with there advice

[lookinforinfo]

I am surpriised, as it does look that there is a means of renegotiating from what I

read on that website. And the fact that you haven't yet been served the papers

also suggested that they were stalling in order to give you time to come up

with a plan.

 

I didn't expect the bailiffs to be of any help, but thought the court might have

given you a suggestion or two. Even something like an appeal on the grounds that

you had no idea all this was going on. Or an appeal against the amount, if the

bailiffs have added on too much to the original amount.

 

If all else fails, is there any chance of one of your banks giving you a loan for the amount? This would get both your accounts up and running again much more quickly, and put you in the situation of unfreezing your accounts and access to

the money in those accounts.

[chopperclaire]

Presume you have sorted this, but ensure your wages go to an alternative account otherwise they may be frozen aswell and you will struggle for another month.

[Guest Battleaxe]

Now I know what happened to you. i was waiting for your email to send you the paper work we discussed. What a development.

 

Don't forget to contact your mortgage lender and let them know what has happened and what you are trying to do. they might be able to give some advice. it is in their interst to get their money.

 

Sorry I wasn't too much help yesterday.

[lookinforinfo]

Star, I was surprised that there seemed no way to reverse an arrestment, despite

the article on an earlier post of mine Debtors [scotland] Act 1987.

 

I suspect that when you spoke the other day to all the different bodies, you may

not have asked the right questions. Like me in a not dissimilar situation, I asked

"can they do this" or "how can they do this", rather than "how can I sort it"?

 

You can appeal under The Act of Sederunt. You have to apply to the Sheriff

within 14 days I think, of the Arrestment, under section 124 [3] or section 124 [6]

of the act, appealing for the recall of the arrestment or loosing of the arrestment.

 

Your grounds would be

1] that you did not know their was a court case. Your case was heard without you

therefore and so breached article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

 

2] You had previously made an offer to pay the bailiffs, which they had refused,

but you feel that had your offer been repeated during the trial, that the Court

would have looked on it more sypathetically, and certainly not imposed an

arrestment.

[star55]

Now I know what happened to you. i was waiting for your email to send you the paper work we discussed. What a development.

 

Don't forget to contact your mortgage lender and let them know what has happened and what you are trying to do. they might be able to give some advice. it is in their interst to get their money.

 

Sorry I wasn't too much help yesterday.

 

 

hi battleaxe , thanks for the time you spent on the phone to me , what happened was when i was talking to you in the chat room , a went to copy and paste your email address but the private message bit ended befor ei got time to save it , sorry for that ..

[star55]

Star, I was surprised that there seemed no way to reverse an arrestment, despite

the article on an earlier post of mine Debtors [scotland] Act 1987.

 

I suspect that when you spoke the other day to all the different bodies, you may

not have asked the right questions. Like me in a not dissimilar situation, I asked

"can they do this" or "how can they do this", rather than "how can I sort it"?

 

You can appeal under The Act of Sederunt. You have to apply to the Sheriff

within 14 days I think, of the Arrestment, under section 124 [3] or section 124 [6]

of the act, appealing for the recall of the arrestment or loosing of the arrestment.

 

Your grounds would be

1] that you did not know their was a court case. Your case was heard without you

therefore and so breached article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

 

2] You had previously made an offer to pay the bailiffs, which they had refused,

but you feel that had your offer been repeated during the trial, that the Court

would have looked on it more sypathetically, and certainly not imposed an

arrestment.

 

 

 

 

thats good advice , i think i will go down that road , thank you for the time aswell in helping me

[Bigmac versus]

Been reading this post today due to our joint account being emptied today to the tune of £1265 every penny we had, they left us with nothing and we have 3 kids to feed, and they still want another £45, i knew i owed them under £700 for this year but they said there is additional community charges also. We have never had any arrears in any years at all, that i know for sure and have receipts for each year thankfully even going back to POLL TAX my question is can i use the same approach that lookingforinfo mentioned The Act Of Sederunt and could we add something on due to the disputed community charge, any info would be greatly appreciated and really sorry for hijacking this post ,I know this could have been avoided with payments being regular but life sometimes dosent allow this to happen, the money in the account only went in last week for my wife from Student loans in Scotland to assist her during uni, this has really put a spanner in the works.

[lookinforinfo]

George, we do not know if it works for Star yet.

 

Assuming that it was an arrestment you have suffered as well, you have nothing to lose to ask. You also have an extra cause for appeal if you are sure that you do not owe anything from previous years.

 

I don't suppose you will be able to do much in terms of appealing over the weekend, but you could try googling the act of sederunt and see if you can learn

something that might help on Monday when the Courts reopen.

 

As you are hijacking star's thread, suggest that you begin one of your own, even

if it is just called "arrestment 2"

[Bigmac versus]

Many thanks, as we didnt find out till 4pm today and we were out at the time we didnt have time to do much, unsure what its called but the money has been set aside until we sign a mandate for them to actually take it, assumed it was arrestment we never got any notice of intention, nothing, On Monday will call at the bank although i dont expect any favours as im claiming back charges too. And will start new thread, thx again lookingforinfo