Enforcement Query

[NiteHawk]

A couple of years back i paid my council tax in cash , the amount i covered was for the present year and part of the previous year. i was given a receipt.
Long Story short , the local council claim the money was never paid and refuse to take the receipt they gave me as proof.
It went to court and they got Liability orders.

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON THE ABOVE , I'm currently dealing with this part.

The issue is , since getting the liability orders they have given the debt to various Bailiffs who have all failed to recover any monies.

The value of each Liability order is below £1500.

A couple of weeks before April 6th Bristow & Sutor put a Levy on the vehicle parked on my drive , I'ts a company vehicle (i am the director of the company)

The company sent them an email explaining the error and the financial implications to them if they try to interfere with the vehicle in any manner. They responded that they would check with DVLA and the levy would be canceled if the vehicle was not owned by the debtor.

Nothing was heard from them at all until shortly after the 6th when they sent me a nice letter informing me of the new regulations and i had 5 days to pay blah blah.

Two weeks later i returned home to find another nice letter informing me that an Enforcement Agent had attended the premises and charged me £300 for the pleasure...

If they already had a Levy on the vehicle how can they apply an enforcement charge on it?

£300 is above the £235 charge so i'm assuming that this includes the 7.5% they put on top if the order value is above £1500.

From what i understand is that they can only put the charge on one Liability Order , and if that order is above £1500 then they can put on the percentage.

What it looks like they have done is correctly put the charge on one order but then added both orders together , making the total debt more that £1500 and slapping on the percentage.

After they have attended 5 times and not been able to recover anything , what then , will the council give it to another set of bailiffs and then the cycle continues???

If Bailiff X gets the job from the council , charges £75 , fails to get any monies then the council give it to Bailiff Y who also fail , then give it back to bailiff X....Is this then a new instruction? can bailiff X reapply the £75 etc , even though they have already attended for the same liability order?

Sorry this is all a bit confusing , it confuses the hell out of me.

[Guest]

Re: Enforcement Query

This is a classic example why incompetent councils should NEVER be trusted with cash payments. What other business do you know that refuses bona fide receipts to clients? If your council is anything like mine, the receipt you have will merely acknowledge a cash payment has been received but not the amount of cash.

You really need to lodge a formal complaint to the CEO. Ask for recovery action to be suspended whilst your complaint is being investigated.

B&S have probably cancelled the levy as financially, they're probably better off re-visiting & charging £235. It saves them a lot of hassle as well.

B&S are pretty good in supplying debtors with breakdowns of fees & this is what you should ask for. You should be able to access your account via their website & this should show you what fees have been added and what they're for.

If you let it drag, B&S may ask you to provide financial details to them or they may return the account to the council and the council will then apply for an AOE. As your an employee of the company, you will be bound by law to provide information for this.

The complaint should place things on hold until the matter is resolved.