Jacobs Bailiffs Help Please

[Amy]

Re: Jacobs Bailiffs Help Please

I'm not sure that I understand fully.

Your (now) wife has been overpaid in council tax benefit.

the council was overpaying itself, then lumping her with the charges?"

What does this mean? What charges?

a second (red paper) letter was sent 11.02.2009 stating that a liability order had been made at her majesty's court services chester street, stating that a council tax liability order notification was sent out on 18th of november 2008. no such notification was sent to this address in north wales and previous to our marriage in august no letters were sent to her previous address in birkenhead by wirral council informing her of any such over payment or intention to take her to court.

How do you know this if you didn't receive any letters?

a third letter was received shortly after on 18.02.2009 from wirral bc headed FINAL DEMAND ... this time saying Housing Benefit Overpayment (cant they even make up their minds what the debt is for? they certainly cant figure out the amount because between the 05.02.2009 and the 15.02.2009 the amount had changed from £299.97 to a flat £430!)

The difference in amount will be for the council applying for the liability order and various fees added. You should either speak to the council on the telephone if you feel confident enough or you could send the Subject Access Request letter which you will find in the bailiff guide.

You are correct in not dealing with the bailiffs, if they cannot get anywhere they will have no alternative but to return the debt to the council, but you need to find out what they believe your wife actually owes them and why.

[sick_ov_it]

Re: Jacobs Bailiffs Help Please

lol well it seems by trying to give all the details i just confused matters

in response your queries ...

the letters from the council say that there was an overpayment made and that my wife is expected to compensate the £229.97 of overpayed council tax, ie that we are to pay back that amount.
the council tax benefit is not paid to the person claiming the benefit, it is paid directly to the council. if an overpayment has been made, it is not my wife who is liable to return the money, it is the council, seeing as she has never seen a penny of this benefit and has certainly not profited from it in any way. when i refer to charges, i am referring to the fact that we are now expected to stump up this amount to pay back to the council. theyve already received 229 pounds too much!!! now they want us to pay it to them AGAIN????
regarding having received letters i thought i had been clear that we received correspondances addressed to my wife in her previous name at our address here (a different address from the one in dispute) ... i said PREVIOUS TO OUR MARRIAGE NO LETTERS WERE SENT TO HER AT HER FORMER ADDRESS and to further clarify, no letter was sent regarding the apparent court proceedings over the matter or we would have attended and disputed at that point.
and yes i can understand that charges were added because of a liabilty order, but all the correspondance we received from the council was in February 2009 with only a matter of days between correspondances. the court liability order was made in November 2008 therefore any correspondance sent out AFTER that date should have already included all additional charges, should they not? furthermore, my point was they couldnt even be certain themselves what the money was owed for ... one letter says council tax, the other says housing benefit ... clearly theyre not even able to detemine themselves what the hell theyre talking about so i cant really be that clear myself can i?
anyway, as of today its all in the hands of the CAB advisor we are consulting with, we've made it clear that we are in no way going to communicate with the bailiffs and we are standing firm on the point that we (my wife) DO NOT OWE THIS MONEY .... how can she? we wouldnt mind if there was £229.97 sitting around somewhere which had ACTUALLY been overpaid into our own pockets, but its not and never has been. its sitting in the pockets of WIRRAL BOROUGH COUNCIL and they are STILL asking for my wife to pay the amount to them AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the mind boggles.

[Amy]

Re: Jacobs Bailiffs Help Please

The council is effectively claiming that your wife was not eligible for the amount of council tax benefit that she was awarded.

When the award of council tax benefit was made, the council tax bill would have been reduced accordingly. Therefore, the £229.97 will not have been paid to the council - the council tax bill would have been reduced by this amount.

As I said in my previous post, you either need to send the council a Subject Access Request or telephone them and find out why they believe your wife owes this money to them.

[sick_ov_it]

Re: Jacobs Bailiffs Help Please

ok thank you, still not sure why the council would claim she was not eligible as she was on full benefit entitlements and there were no change in circumstances for the period in question, prior to that period my wife had lived at the property for around five years and during that time had no other such issues, council tax benefit covered her 100% but its now in the hands of our advisor at the CAB and the doors and windows are staying firmly shut ... though i still wonder about the legitimacy of the notice of removal in her former name coming to this address at which i am the sole tenant (all current benefits are also in my name)
thanks again though for your thoughts (i am not sure how to "give thanks" as it were?)

[Amy]

Re: Jacobs Bailiffs Help Please

Mistakes happen, councils are just as fallible as anyone, which is why you need to find out their reasoning. It could be something as simple as having your wife confused with someone else with a similar name.

As for the removal notice coming to your new address, bailiffs will try anything. Although the onus is on the debtor to prove ownership, not on the bailiffs, but none of this is relevant as you have not allowed them peaceful entry.