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Hi,
Last year I received a speeding ticket. Through no one's fault but my own, I kept putting off payment and subsequently forgetting, before eventually receiving a court fine of £200, which I have been unable to pay and thus yet again I put it off - I fully accept this was incredibly foolish of me.
Fast forward to today and I come home to find two notices from Marston.
The first a card claiming that they attended my address today to execute a Distress Warrant that was issued to me.
The second was a complete surprise. A Final Notice for a sum of over £600 owed to my local Council. Now, my immediate thought was that I had missed a council tax payment or something - so I went searching through the last two years of Council tax payments in my bank statements, and sure enough it has been paid every month without fail by Direct Debit.
Armed with this information, I phoned Marston's call centre and explained the situation asking if they could shed any more light on the matter. They claimed it is from a property I lived in four years ago, and when quizzed about why this is the first I've heard about it, they claimed they've been sending letters to the previous property. Given that this letter implies that the bailiff will be back tomorrow to "remove goods for sale at public auction", I asked if there was any way they could put this off until I had it straightened out with the council. She advised me to call the bailiff directly, whose mobile number was on the bottom of the letter.
Upon calling the number, I was met with an obnoxious tone - I could tell this was unlikely to go well, but persevered and proceeded to explain the situation and asking if he could hold off until I had an opportunity to speak to the council in an attempt to get to the bottom of the matter.
His response was that he's left "loads" of hand delivered letters (which he has not) and proceeded to tell me that he has even "DVLA'd" the cars on the drive, which came back as neither mine or my partners. Seeing as both of our cars are registered in our names respectively, I made the suggestion that perhaps he has been visiting the wrong address. He denied such a claim.
He is also claiming that the distress warrant issued for the speeding fine gives him the power to remove goods to settle the local council issue. I asked if I could pay off the speeding fine one, but he told me that they wouldn't let me do that as it'd remove the powers that allowed them to force entry into my house.
I am really at a loss as to what to do.
I've read little tid bits about being able to apply to the court for a suspension of the bailiff order, but I've been unable to find any solid information or whether something like this is possible in my short timeframe.
I do not want to avoid paying these fees if they are indeed owed (however, wouldn't mind avoiding the ridiculous sum of money Marston's have thrown on top), I'd just like the opportunity to avoid issues tomorrow, and if at all possible deal with the people I owe the money to rather than Marston's who only seem to be interested in intimidating largely inflated sums from me (those that I could not afford to pay all in one go either).
TL;DR
Distress warrant issued, Marston claim they are coming tomorrow to execute it but will not allow me to pay that before another completely unknown debt can be worked out/confirmed with the local council. thus leaving me with nearly £1200 that they want to recover - likely everything in my house at the values they offer
Last year I received a speeding ticket. Through no one's fault but my own, I kept putting off payment and subsequently forgetting, before eventually receiving a court fine of £200, which I have been unable to pay and thus yet again I put it off - I fully accept this was incredibly foolish of me.
Fast forward to today and I come home to find two notices from Marston.
The first a card claiming that they attended my address today to execute a Distress Warrant that was issued to me.
The second was a complete surprise. A Final Notice for a sum of over £600 owed to my local Council. Now, my immediate thought was that I had missed a council tax payment or something - so I went searching through the last two years of Council tax payments in my bank statements, and sure enough it has been paid every month without fail by Direct Debit.
Armed with this information, I phoned Marston's call centre and explained the situation asking if they could shed any more light on the matter. They claimed it is from a property I lived in four years ago, and when quizzed about why this is the first I've heard about it, they claimed they've been sending letters to the previous property. Given that this letter implies that the bailiff will be back tomorrow to "remove goods for sale at public auction", I asked if there was any way they could put this off until I had it straightened out with the council. She advised me to call the bailiff directly, whose mobile number was on the bottom of the letter.
Upon calling the number, I was met with an obnoxious tone - I could tell this was unlikely to go well, but persevered and proceeded to explain the situation and asking if he could hold off until I had an opportunity to speak to the council in an attempt to get to the bottom of the matter.
His response was that he's left "loads" of hand delivered letters (which he has not) and proceeded to tell me that he has even "DVLA'd" the cars on the drive, which came back as neither mine or my partners. Seeing as both of our cars are registered in our names respectively, I made the suggestion that perhaps he has been visiting the wrong address. He denied such a claim.
He is also claiming that the distress warrant issued for the speeding fine gives him the power to remove goods to settle the local council issue. I asked if I could pay off the speeding fine one, but he told me that they wouldn't let me do that as it'd remove the powers that allowed them to force entry into my house.
I am really at a loss as to what to do.
I've read little tid bits about being able to apply to the court for a suspension of the bailiff order, but I've been unable to find any solid information or whether something like this is possible in my short timeframe.
I do not want to avoid paying these fees if they are indeed owed (however, wouldn't mind avoiding the ridiculous sum of money Marston's have thrown on top), I'd just like the opportunity to avoid issues tomorrow, and if at all possible deal with the people I owe the money to rather than Marston's who only seem to be interested in intimidating largely inflated sums from me (those that I could not afford to pay all in one go either).
TL;DR
Distress warrant issued, Marston claim they are coming tomorrow to execute it but will not allow me to pay that before another completely unknown debt can be worked out/confirmed with the local council. thus leaving me with nearly £1200 that they want to recover - likely everything in my house at the values they offer
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