Bailiffs in the wrong?

[Beccibaxter]

Hi everyone I’m new here.
I’m just going to dive right in.

I got a letter from the bailiffs called a formal notification of the issue of a liability order for unpaid council tax.
It says on it that I have 7 days from the date on the letter to fill in their form and offer a payment arrangement. Which I did. I sent it recorded mail and they received it 2 days later. However...the form they sent me had someone else’s name and account details on it, amount owed, creditor, home address etc.
I wanted it sorted so I crossed out all their details and wrote a letter explaining what they’d done and what I’d done.

It also said in the letter if they accepted my offer they’d write and tell me, it also said that if they didn’t accept it they’d write and tell me and would initiate the compliance stage fee.

It gets to the 26th October and I get a notice of Enforcement letter with the extra £75 compliance fee added on.
So I rang them to ask why they’d done that without accepting or declining my offer in writing.
They tell me they didn’t receive my form. Suddenly though it magically appeared on their system when I gave them the details of the recorded delivery.

They said the compliance fee had been added because they had a back log of forms and the 7 day deadline had passed for my offer to be considered!!

I demanded they remove the fee which, to their credit, they said they would.
Now they are insisting on a new income and expenditure form and proof of my ESA dated within the last 3 months because apparently my income and expenditure form I filled in 3 weeks ago is now out of date!
They’ve put the account on hold for 7 days so I can get them the exact same information they already have.

I mean am I wrong here? Should I be putting a complaint in about all the errors they made? About the fact they tried to con £75 out of me because they had a back log?

Did they follow the law when they ignored my offer of payment?

Please advise me on this. I’m disabled and so severely stressed by all this that I’m not eating or sleeping properly.

I mean I wouldn’t mind but this is due to the the councils error in the first place. I had some arrears last year which were being paid straight from my benefits and then I was making this year’s payments via bank transfer. I have receipts for every payment and didn’t miss a single one this year until the council messed up and started putting this year’s payments towards last years debt (that was already being deducted from my benefits). It put me 3 months in arrears. They issued me a final notice which is when they and I discovered the error. They withdrew the final notice. The powers that be however, refused to put the payments where they should be and then told me in a letter dated the 27th of September that they were taking me to court on the 26th of September!
So I couldn’t even go to court to put my side across.

I’m so fed up of all this and of course the bailiffs don’t care that it was the council that messed up, they just expect me to pay 3 months council tax AGAIN plus court and bailiff fees.

Nobody cares at the council tax office so where do I go next?

Sorry it’s so long, thank you for reading.

[russelldurose]

First of all I think you need to write to your Council Tax office email with email entitled FORMAL COMPLAINT, and if they were taking the arrears etc from benefits, why are the bailiffs involved. You have the right to ask the Council to bring the case back to their administration. They will reply to your FORMAL COMPLAINT with a stage 1 enquiry. In the meantime whilst the OFFICIAL COMPLAINT is going through ask that they CONFIRM that the enforcement has been put on hold, and request is that it be put on hold. The Council messed up with their accounting, so they have the duty to call the case back from the enforcement agents. Send a copy of any statements of payments that you made and how up to date you are. As you are on ESA you are entitled to be classed as "vulnerable". If you send a normal email without the subject line saying FORMAL COMPLAINT they will fob you off with the classic line "it is with the bailiffs so negotiate with them." You have the right to refuse to deal with them.

[zeke]

Did you keep a copy of the form with the wrong name and address printed on it?

If so, you can report a concern online with the Information Commissioner's Office https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/you ... -concerns/

If you are disabled, then you are not liable for the enforcement stage fee until you have been given an adequate opportunity to get assistance and advice in relation to the exercise of the enforcement power.

Parliament introduced this rule to protect supported people from poverty.

If you are so severely stressed by all this that I’m not eating or sleeping properly, then you have grounds to make a plea to the council to write off the council tax arrears.

Section 13(a) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 says the council has the power to reduce the council tax liability to nil.

You have several grounds, the first is that enforcing the liability may result in harm to you, and secondly, it forces your income to a level below the government's poverty threshold.

Sever communication with the bailiff company and engage with your local councillor. Ask him to petition the council to exercise its discretion under section 13a to write off the liability and in the meantime, suspend the enforcement.