Can Council Tax Arrears passed to Newlyn PLC be recalled back on vunerability **Resolved** grounds?

[DragonFly1967]

To be perfectly honest LadyDay, at this point, I'd just pay the council their £90.60 directly to clear completely the outstanding Council tax. You've said that you've already paid the court costs of £190, I feel that the costs of the Liability Orders, £95 each is a bit steep, but that's by the bye.

 

That should, as far as I can make out the legislation (and I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong) discharge the Liability Orders, and would therefore mean that the bailiffs wouldn't be able to act against you, as there'd be no Liability Order in place/outstanding, and that forms their ability to act.

 

Newlyn's will probably still try chasing you for their fees, but again, as far as I can make out, without an active Liability Order, they'd have to take separate court action against you to recover them. Which may not be worth their while.

[brassnecked]

If you have not let them in and there is no notice of seizure then you need a breakdown of fees from Jacobs and Newlyn to see exactly what they have added. Jacobs and Newlyn may come up with a levy on a car, any car not neccessarily yours to ground a levy fee, and attending to remove fee, van fee, using toilet fee etc. but thoise can be challenged. Get the SW and your doctor to prove your condition, and yes it makes the whole household vulnerable, so the call centre drone is wrong. It is in the remit of the council to recall,

[caro]

Just to say ladyday, that had the thread been closed, you'd still have had advice, but thankfully your thread is back on topic so I hope it stays that way.

 

I'm not knowledgeable enough to offer advice on this but just want to say I hope you get this sorted.

[brassnecked]

Thanks for helping keep things on track caro, we need to concentrate on best advice for LadyDay and her familiy in view of the full circumstances ploddertom has opened up the way to gain the full history, as it looks like the council has used two different bailiffs and even though SW involved seem to be ignoring the obvious vulnerability that existed from the beginning. Jacobs are a duplicitous nasty bunch, as are Newlyn so a full breakdown of what they have charged would be good perhaps the old Acme letter revised might be in order, due to this predating the Taking Control of Goods introduction on April 6th

 

To:

Acme Bailiff Co

Bailiff House

 

Ref: Account No: 123456

 

Dear Sir

 

With reference to the above account, Can you please provide me with a breakdown of the charges.

 

This includes:

a - the time & date of any Bailiff action that incurred a Fee.

b - the reason for the fee.

c - the name(s) of the Bailiff(s) that attended on each occasion a Fee was charged.

d - the name(s) of the Court(s) the Bailiff(s) was/were Certificated at.

e - the date of the Certification.

 

This is not a Subject access request under the Data Protection Act S7 1998 so does not incur a fee of £10. You are obliged to provide this information.

 

I require this information within 14 days.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Ripped off custome

[LadyDay]

Thanks caro thats good to know.

And DragonFly1967, thats's correct I have paid off the court costs and have the amount outstanding that yes, I'll be able to pay off next week.

Do people think/ anybody know then whether I would have to now pay 2 lots of balliffs - Jacobs and Newlyns - fees for what amounts to the same debt??

I suppose I assumed that it was just Newlyns I was dealing with now??? because there have been no Jacobs letters for about 6 months or more according to the dates of the letters we've been through. But then again my assumptions to date have proven to be wrong

 

Thanks brassnecked. I think contacting ballifs will have to be on my to do list at some point but only after I've spoken to the local councillor and written to the Council etc as has been suggested and see how all that goes. See if they might acknowledge my(our) situation. It's still current but maybe just a bit better handled.

 

Thanks everyone.

Edited July 13, 2014 by LadyDay

[lookinforinfo]

I think Dragonfly is mistaken if the implication is that once the debt has been paid that the uncollected fees die with that. Some of the fees may still be due and if bailiff

companies were so not reticent about how the fees were arrived at life would be much easier. One suspects that this is so because they do not want to scupper the chances

of their bailiffs overcharging. it would be interesting to know whether the bailiff gets to keep all the overcharges or if some goes to the company

[DragonFly1967]

I think Dragonfly is mistaken if the implication is that once the debt has been paid that the uncollected fees die with that. Some of the fees may still be due and if bailiff

companies were so not reticent about how the fees were arrived at life would be much easier. One suspects that this is so because they do not want to scupper the chances

of their bailiffs overcharging. it would be interesting to know whether the bailiff gets to keep all the overcharges or if some goes to the company

 

Ahh no, perhaps I didn't put it very well.

 

I don't think the fees will disappear, I'm just not sure that the bailiffs would be able to levy/take further action on a Liability Order that's been satisfied, it's that LO that gives them the authority to act (isn't it?), meaning that they'd have to take their own action, if it was worth the effort, to recover their fees.

[brassnecked]

Ahh no, perhaps I didn't put it very well.

 

I don't think the fees will disappear, I'm just not sure that the bailiffs would be able to levy/take further action on a Liability Order that's been satisfied, it's that LO that gives them the authority to act (isn't it?), meaning that they'd have to take their own action, if it was worth the effort, to recover their fees.

If the situation was vulnerable ab initio, and the council should never have sent bailiffs then the fees are possibly questionable, certainly the last set should be removed once council accept evidence.

[LadyDay]

I was certainly in a 'vunerable position' from the outset if thats what 'ab initio' means, but the Council wasn't aware from the very start as I thought I could just 'get on top of things' on my own. Nor did I realise at the time that the Council could have a perspective on these kind of thngs. I guess that means I'm informing them 'after the fact' although my doctors notes and other various documents could verify all the things that we're happening at the time the problems started to happen.

[brassnecked]

I was certainly in a 'vunerable position' from the outset if thats what 'ab initio' means, but the Council wasn't aware from the very start as I thought I could just 'get on top of things' on my own. Nor did I realise at the time that the Council could have a perspective on these kind of thngs. I guess that means I'm informing them 'after the fact' although my doctors notes and other various documents could verify all the things that we're happening at the time the problems started to happen.

 

Show them that your illness predated their actions and you were vulnerable all along, itmight help yes ab-initio does mean from the start of a course of action, as in if a bailiff was to take next doors car and sell it for your debt (not unknown unfortunately) it would be ab-initio unlawful from when the bailiff seized it.

[LadyDay]

Hi All, it's February 26th 2015 and I just wanted to UPDATE you all on what happened for anybody reading this thread. Now it's a bit of a short 'anti-climax' but a result is a result in my book and it worked out for me.

 

I did get a letter from my social worker which evidenced that this was a condition which pre-dated my CT arrears and how it affected me on a daily basis. I also had photocopies of a few doctors letters and interestingly photocopies from the Baliffs own website about vulnerable people in which case it stated that these cases would be referred back to the Council!! So I had done all my homework (with help) and had a bundle ready to take to my local councillor.

 

However, (anticlimax) I had just missed the surgery with my preferred Councillor and her next surgery was the following month...so I was stressed, tired and frankly just left it for a few months. When I was gearing up to nip it all in the bud and finally see this Councillor , I decided to check my Council Tax statement to make sure I had all my numbers correct. I then found the following note on my file.

 

RETURNED NULLA BONA

 

When I looked up that Latin phrase it turns out the the Ballifs were so sick of attending my house (but not getting a response) as I NEVER once opened the door to them, that they sent my account back to the Council and 'cut their losses'. ^^I never knew this even existed^^ This therefore meant for me that rather then all the added Baliffs fees which were totalling nearly £500, I was then left with the original Council court costs of £95, which was the remaining debt as I had already paid everything else off. Of course I paid this off immediately!!

 

You'll note from this thread that even though I had been in Council Tax arrears, that I was always continually paying the Council who were accepting the money (despite verbally saying they would not). So by the time it would have come to them authorising a new Balliff to take over, the debt had already been paid. I am now fully up to date and even though real tough circumstances caused the initial problem, I'll ensure that this never happens again as the added stress I could have lived without!! I mean they don't go after their rich tax dodging masters, only ordinary people who get into problems!

 

Anyway, that's the end of my story. Please take from it what you will. But I just wanted to say THANK YOU to everybody who responded with useful advice and information. This site is amazing!!

Edited February 26, 2015 by LadyDay

[brassnecked]

Glad things have worked out for you.

[ploddertom]

Thank you for coming back & updating us & I'm sure you are mightily relieved it is over. I'll amend your Thread title.

[i hate bailiffs]

Great news:whoo:

[Bailiff Advice]

 

RETURNED NULLA BONA

 

When I looked up that Latin phrase it turns out the the Ballifs were so sick of attending my house (but not getting a response) as I NEVER once opened the door to them, that they sent my account back to the Council and 'cut their losses'. ^^I never knew this even existed^^ This therefore meant for me that rather then all the added Baliffs fees which were totalling nearly £500, I was then left with the original Council court costs of £95, which was the remaining debt as I had already paid everything else off. Of course I paid this off immediately!!

 

You'll note from this thread that even though I had been in Council Tax arrears, that I was always continually paying the Council who were accepting the money (despite verbally saying they would not). So by the time it would have come to them authorising a new Balliff to take over, the debt had already been paid. I am now fully up to date and even though real tough circumstances caused the initial problem, I'll ensure that this never happens again as the added stress I could have lived without!! I mean they don't go after their rich tax dodging masters, only ordinary people who get into problems!

 

Anyway, that's the end of my story. Please take from it what you will. But I just wanted to say THANK YOU to everybody who responded with useful advice and information. This site is amazing!!

 

Thank you so much for coming back to update us all and this is important for a number of reasons:

 

When you first posted the new bailiff regulations had only been in place for 12 weeks and we were all on a 'learning curve'' (so to speak). There is still a great deal to understand and this is not helped by local authorities not understanding the regulations themselves !!!

 

What your thread has evidenced is that enforcement companies do not return accounts back as 'Nulla Bona' if debtors pay the council direct. A fact that is well known to regular posters on here but very much misunderstood by debtors.

 

Once again, thank you for updating your thread.