Having to sell house

[jax007]

my daughter's b/f has a very overdue tax bill of around £11k. He has around £5K stayed in a bank charge claim and another (at least) £9K for a second claim not yet filed in court. His tax bill is so overdue the IR will only accept full payment and no instalment terms although they are making him pay £500 per week. He has his own barber shop but has pretty well messed up on the finances (left to a third party!).

Can this be used to push his claim through the courts by pleading hardship or is he stuffed regarding the bank charges?

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks
jax

[Amethyst]

Re: Having to sell house

Hiya hunny

Bud said you were posting. I'll bump a couple peeps over here in the morning re the tax and have a think on the hardship side of things for him.

If you cant sleep if you can add on value / equity in house, other debts, and has he submitted a full income expenditure form to IR.

Also the £5k and £9k including stat interest or excluding?

Talk tmw hunny


Night xxxxx Ame xxxx

[TUTTSI]

Re: Having to sell house

my daughter's b/f has a very overdue tax bill of around £11k. He has around £5K stayed in a bank charge claim and another (at least) £9K for a second claim not yet filed in court. His tax bill is so overdue the IR will only accept full payment and no instalment terms although they are making him pay £500 per week. He has his own barber shop but has pretty well messed up on the finances (left to a third party!).

Can this be used to push his claim through the courts by pleading hardship or is he stuffed regarding the bank charges?

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks
jax

Hiya Jax

The courts unfortunately, are not IMHO looking at hardship cases even during the waiver even when provisions had been made for hardship. I was recently in court for a case management hearing with a circuit judge and I was up against Abbey's barrister for 1.5 hours trying to fight my corner both on the hardship and that the defence which Abbey gave to me and to the OFT were significantly different. We are severely behind with our mortgage repayments due to illness and the courts were just not interested.

In the first instance, I would phone the bank concerned and tell them of the hardship/financial situation and see if there is some way in which they could help in the short term. In my case Abbey have intimated to me that I could have a loan to help with my situation if I wanted. I did not want to add a further burden at this time and have sucessfully managed to get the mortgage company to add our arrears to our mortgage and pay this back over 48 months. This has stopped a repossession on our house.

If it is at all possible if a loan could be obtained either from family or bank/other loan would be cheaper to pay back rather than £500 per month. From my experience with the Revenue, they will change the goal post and at any time they could issue a statutory demand and file for bankruptcy. Please remember once the tax bill is below £750 they cannot make you bankrupt. Is there any way a second mortgage on the house could be taken if there is sufficient equity, this is like a loan and again would be a lot cheaper, or in the first instant go to the existing mortgage company and request a top up say in the sum of £11K to clear this debt ASAP.

The important thing here is with the Revenue, is to keep in contact preferably by writing. Tell them your intentions ask them for some time say 3-4 months whilst you search for a loan and keep up the payments if at all possible during this time.

Are they sure that the tax bill is correct, do they have an accountant to verify that the sum is correct. Unfortunately, with the Revenue, there is no quick fix unless you are able to pay on demand. If you query the bill this could also delay matters with them as they can come after you for this debt if the debt is in dispute. This dispute will not be put on hold indefinately, but may buy you some time whilst alternative arrangements are being made.

[Celestine]

Re: Having to sell house

Great advice there Tutts. I have to agree that there is virtually nil possibility of his claim being considered for hardship.

I also agree that it is vital you keep communicating with the IR. If his best option is a remortgage or loan, then the application for this can be 'shown' to the IR to buy some more time.
Best of luck

[Kafka]

Re: Having to sell house

my daughter's b/f has a very overdue tax bill of around £11k. He has around £5K stayed in a bank charge claim and another (at least) £9K for a second claim not yet filed in court. His tax bill is so overdue the IR will only accept full payment and no instalment terms although they are making him pay £500 per week. He has his own barber shop but has pretty well messed up on the finances (left to a third party!).

Can this be used to push his claim through the courts by pleading hardship or is he stuffed regarding the bank charges?

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks
jax

Hi Jax

Please give fuller details of the charges claims you mention.

• Are they bank accounts (business or personal?) or credit cards?
• Who are they with?
• What period do they cover?
• Are all the charges reclaimable?
• What are the totals of charges?
• What are the interest calculations?
• What is the history of the stayed claim?

If you want to try to plead hardship on the grounds of stayed claims they will need filing at court urgently so you can be getting this ready in case. This is very difficult, but pleading the stayed claims could help along with other arguments so it is worth considering.

Without full details it is very hard to consider options though - please let us know.

The other issue is that we are looking for cases of severe hardship to use to fight the stays, particularly with the whole issue of the test case being debated in late May. We hope to be using cases like this to fight the case generally if the outcome (as expected) leaves all of the stays in place with the banks still being allowed to keep overcharging. I know that's not a lot of comfort but we need all the help we can get with this from people who are willing to help.

[Paule]

Re: Having to sell house

As Ame mentioned earlier, it would be good to do an Income Expenditure sheet

That way you can see exactley where you stand financially

Here is the link for the I/E sheets

MS Office format

Open Office format

PKea

[jax007]

Re: Having to sell house

Thanks for all your replies and support guys

• Are they bank accounts (business or personal?) or credit cards? personal current
• Who are they with? nat west
• What period do they cover? 1. 2001-2003 2. 2003-2007 (2007-2008 to be calculated)
• Are all the charges reclaimable? yep
• What are the totals of charges? 1. £1400 2. £4300
• What are the interest calculations? Using daily compounded bank rate of 24.9% 1. £3500 2. £4600
• What is the history of the stayed claim? court hearing for claim to be stayed. Judge said no grounds for staying claim therefore denied nasty vest appealed and first nice judge got overruled! bummer!!

Claim no 2 - we need to reapply for charges to be repaid by letter before submitting claim to court.

He also has a business account which we are in process of sending SAR request as we can't find all the statements. (He is NOT a limited company - sole trader)

Hope that answers all the queries

Cheers
Jax

[Budgie]

Re: Having to sell house

I have been talking to Jax offline about claim 2 for Nat West Personal Account, £4300 charges between 2003 and Nov 2007.

Started work on a draft LBA. May be better to go for charges only ( no CI ) and really really push hardship in an attempt to get it settled and quick return.

This will be difficult at best but there would obviously be no chance at all of quicker settlement if claiming CI.

If it goes to Court claim then again it may be better to just try for statutory rather than CI and again really push hardship angle.

What do people suggest?

Budgie

[Amethyst]

Re: Having to sell house

May be better to go for charges only ( no CI ) and really really push hardship in an attempt to get it settled and quick return.

:high5:

Sadly I also agree about the hardship angle - theres not a lot of chance on that one unless there is a lot more going on here than this tax bill.

I also agree on the borrowing from elsewhere to get the tax bill paid off (and its not often I recommend borrowing!)

Definately do the income expenditure sheet ASAP - will help us see where you are at with everything and work out how best to try get this tax paid off.

I'll try talk to Bud tmw too xxx

[scoobydoo]

Re: Having to sell house

Below is a quote from a letter from a thread on hardship.

It was felt in general that the charges should have caused or worsened the hardship - rather than the claimant already being in that position. And in court that was very difficult to prove.

Complaints about unauthorised overdraft charges: hardship cases
An announcement was made recently about a test case on unauthorised overdraft charges. Until that case is heard in court, banks joined in the case have been given dispensation by the FSA just to acknowledge but not to investigate complaints, unless the customer is in very difficult financial circumstances. Banks and building societies will have to conduct a filtering process to ensure that cases of genuine hardship are still dealt with during the waiver period. Complaints about banks which have not complied with the financial difficulties provisions of the Code would still be entitled to be referred to, and dealt with by, the FOS under the complaints procedure as explained above.
“Financial hardship” is not defined in the Banking Code. Financial institutions should consider complaints on a case by case basis, taking into account the information provided by the customer. Similarly FOS will consider the merits of each individual case. Section 14 of the Code and Guidance cover how firms should treat customers in financial difficulties.”
I hope this is helpful to you .
Regards,
Mrs Hilary Putt
Helpdesk Manager
Banking Code Standard Board

[jax007]

Re: Having to sell house

thanx guys - we have calculated the charges to date and they come to just under £5K and the account is now in credit but not used so there will be no further charges levied.

There is also a business account and we have just requested his statements/list of charges so that might be able to get through and not be stayed - if it gets that far anyway!!

I shall try to get him to do an income/expenditure sheet in the meantime

jax

[enaid]

Re: Having to sell house

Banks and building societies will have to conduct a filtering process to ensure that cases of genuine hardship are still dealt with during the waiver period

Well we know how they filtered the CC claims during the waiver, they went in the same drawer as the Personal Accounts.
So I think for them to identify a genuine hardship case, would be nigh on impossible if it never got passed the filing clerk.

[Amethyst]

Re: Having to sell house

I shall try to get him to do an income/expenditure sheet in the meantime

Yep do that its important - and get him to put down all other debts besides this tax bill on it.

[jax007]

Re: Having to sell house

Quick update and question here?

Some good uplifting news :bounce:

The house is officially off the market (thank God) due to business picking up so dramatically that daughter's B/F is currently managing to pay the taxman a staggering £500 per week and has been doing for about the last 3 months!! :lol:

He still has a bank charges claim which we did an LBA for and I have just realized the deadline for the bank is long gone and we have had no response.

What's the situation now with these charges? Should we send a 2nd LBA and if so, after that should we file a court claim? I do realize it will be stayed but I'm not sure how far we are taking these claims in the light of Test Case.

jax

[jax007]

Bank Charges - Starting Court Action

What's the process now for bank charges for those that have been applied for?

After sending LBAs are we still starting court action in spite of the fact that it will be stayed or are we just going as far as sending the LBAs??

Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanx
jax