Discussion thread no. 78

[lgfa92]

Re: Previously posted, removal notice

LGFA

The authority would not be allowed to go for a committal hearing until an attachment had been considered. Case law has determined this.

Which case in particular are you referring to ?

Craig

[Milo]

Re: Previously posted, removal notice

The way I thought this worked and please correct me if I am wrong,is that a committal hearing in the first instance had to do a test of means to ascertain if the debtor has enough to repay. As well as to commit the court has the power to write off the debt entirely of course.

It seems to be sense to me that the court assertions that the debtor has means before condoning any kind of further enforcement ,including AOEs.

In the first instances, this young lady will NOT ever be a candidate for commital.

I have often spoken of how rare it is for a person to be sent to prison but unfortunately, I was proved dreadfully wrong two weeks ago after attending a conference where approx 80 local authorities were represented. Most surprisingly, many of them reported that they have frequent commital hearings with reports of quite a large number of debtors actually being sent to prison. I was certainly suprised at the numbers reported.

Before getting to such a stage of recovery, the local authority MUST demonstrate that they had tried all other forms of enforcement first. (Bailiffs, attatchment against earnings/benefits etc).

Also, if a person is seen to be making a payment proposal (obviously not a £1 per week), then once again, commital cannot be a consideration.

[Henti]

Re: Previously posted, removal notice

The way I thought this worked and please correct me if I am wrong,is that a committal hearing in the first instance had to do a test of means to ascertain if the debtor has enough to repay. As well as to commit the court has the power to write off the debt entirely of course.

It seems to be sense to me that the court assertions that the debtor has means before condoning any kind of further enforcement ,including AOEs.