Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

[Guest]

Hello,

II have received a 'notification of enforcement agent visit' from Bristow & Sutor, regarding owed council tax monies. The amount due is £546, including the £235 'enforcement stage fee'.

I have no interest in dealing with these people, and would ideally like to pay the council the amount that is owed. I suffer from Clinical Depression, so although I have the best intentions, sometimes, I just lock myself away in my house, and haven't dealt with this with the council, before it got to the enforcement stage.

I contacted my council yesterday, regarding paying the money to them directly (I offered £20 / month), and skipping the bailiffs (using a letter template on this site) - I also informed them that I was classed as ;Vulnerable' in the guidelines. I received this back, today.

I refer to your recent email correspondence which I have copied in below.

I note that to date we still haven’t received any payments from you towards this year’s Council Tax, payments prior to that have been and still are continuing to be collected through an Attachment of Benefits, therefore if we return this debt which we are unable to do so then there is no assurances from yourself that payments will continue to XYZ Council.

We would not consider yourself to be classed as a vulnerable person therefore recovery of the debt will continue, which is also the same for removal of goods.

As your account has now been referred to Bristow and Sutor we will not be able to get involved any further and we will not be able to accept an arrangement. The offer that you have made would not be sufficient enough considering the debt that is outstanding now. We would request for the balance to be cleared before April 2015 therefore not having another overlap of payments causing further financial difficulties.

The Council will not refuse payments and we will of course deduct any payments made off your balance, should your account be returned to us then we will move recovery on and start proceedings for committal to prison, insolvency or bankruptcy.

I note on your account that you are also in receipt of Child Tax Credits and Child Benefit as well as Employment Support Allowance, therefore we would not think it unreasonable you make a fair offer to repay the balance owed.

Please contact Bristow and Sutor to avoid further costs being added to your account, XYZ Council have provided you from when your Summons was issued on the 04/07/2014 to 16/09/2014 to respond to us and retain the debt with us and this is adequate enough time for you to have made contact to avoid this situation, therefore we will not be able to recall the balance.

I urge you to contact Bristow and Sutor and put a suitable arrangement in place.

Yours sincerely

Could I have advice on how to respond to this, please? How should I be moving this on? I would prefer not to have this stress in my life (although I am painfully aware that i've caused it)

[Kati]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

You could just refuse to deal with the bailiffs and insist on dealing directly with the council (although I am uncertain how easy this would be to do). Your council, as far as I am aware, cannot refuse to accept payments - they should even allow you to make affordable repayments

Prison is for the "won't pay" not those who can't pay all at once, and I cannot see this happening in your situation - you are not refusing to pay, just wanting to pay the council.

Could you get another (affordable) attachment of benefits set up?
I'd suggest you spoke to your local CAB or MP to see if they will intervene on your behalf.

I'm sure you will get other advice from knowledgeable Beagles soon!

Kati x

[Guest]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

Thanks Kati!

I want to deal directly with the council, with this, and am pretty much willing to stall for however long that takes, if they refuse to remove the debt from the EA. I refuse to support bailiff's, full stop.

[Milo]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

Hello,

II have received a 'notification of enforcement agent visit' from Bristow & Sutor, regarding owed council tax monies. The amount due is £546, including the £235 'enforcement stage fee'.

I have no interest in dealing with these people, and would ideally like to pay the council the amount that is owed. I suffer from Clinical Depression, so although I have the best intentions, sometimes, I just lock myself away in my house, and haven't dealt with this with the council, before it got to the enforcement stage.

I contacted my council yesterday, regarding paying the money to them directly (I offered £20 / month), and skipping the bailiffs (using a letter template on this site) - I also informed them that I was classed as ;Vulnerable' in the guidelines. I received this back, today.



Could I have advice on how to respond to this, please? How should I be moving this on? I would prefer not to have this stress in my life (although I am painfully aware that i've caused it)

Can you post up a redacted copy of the letter from the council as it seems from what has been posted that the council officer has difficulty writing a letter!!

Leaving aside for a moment about paying the council direct I assume that you are in receipt of Council Tax Benefit (given that the Liability Order is for just £236). Is this correct?

Secondly, surely it is much more sensible for the debt to be collected via a 2nd Attachment of Earnings Order? Have you asked the local authority to set this up for you? In that way bailiff enforcement will not be necessary.

[Guest]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

I'll be completely honest, Milo, and say i'm not sure where the letter is, now. Like I said originally, sometimes I just bury my head in the sand for no reason other than to cause myself trouble later.

I am in receipt of Council Tax Benefit. It is more sensible to do an AoE, and I assumed that's what they'd do, once they acquired the liability order. I was obviously wrong, unfortunately.

I have not asked them to do this, how would I go about doing it? (I only have one AoE currently active)

Edit: I'm not even sure I remember seeing a letter from the council, bar the initial bill + summons.

[Kati]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

I'll be completely honest, Milo, and say i'm not sure where the letter is, now. Like I said originally, sometimes I just bury my head in the sand for no reason other than to cause myself trouble later.

I am in receipt of Council Tax Benefit. It is more sensible to do an AoE, and I assumed that's what they'd do, once they acquired the liability order. I was obviously wrong, unfortunately.

I have not asked them to do this, how would I go about doing it? (I only have one AoE currently active)

Edit: I'm not even sure I remember seeing a letter from the council, bar the initial bill + summons.

I'm sure your local CAB or MP would be able to assist you in getting a second AoE set up ... I'd suggest you get an appointment with them and ask them to write a recommendation to your local council on your behalf

K x

[Milo]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

I'll be completely honest, Milo, and say i'm not sure where the letter is, now. Like I said originally, sometimes I just bury my head in the sand for no reason other than to cause myself trouble later.

I am in receipt of Council Tax Benefit. It is more sensible to do an AoE, and I assumed that's what they'd do, once they acquired the liability order. I was obviously wrong, unfortunately.

I have not asked them to do this, how would I go about doing it? (I only have one AoE currently active)

Edit: I'm not even sure I remember seeing a letter from the council, bar the initial bill + summons.

Given your limited income it would have been far better to have entered into a sensible and affordable payment proposal when you received the Notice of Enforcement from B&S . Instead, by not doing so the debt has risen a further fee of £235.

Attachments of Earnings are now becoming far more common but sadly, very unaffordable in cases where the net income is approx £500 per week. The deduction is a huge amount of nearly £350 per month. Given that you are in receipt of benefits I would assume that your income is significantly less and accordingly, the repayment would be more modest.

As you already have one AOE in place it should be a simple matter of speaking with the council to get a 2nd one in place.

If you want to make payments to the council then please do so. The council should not refuse but you need to be aware that they are duty bound to deduct the Compliance Fee of £75 and apportion the balance on a pro rata basis so that the enforcement fee of £235 also gets paid. Addressing the matter during the 'Compliance Stage' is the only way to avoid this I'm afraid.

There is plenty of info regarding the pro rata allocation on previous threads on here so please look around the forum for further info.

[Wombats]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

Hello,

II have received a 'notification of enforcement agent visit' from Bristow & Sutor, regarding owed council tax monies. The amount due is £546, including the £235 'enforcement stage fee'.

I contacted my council yesterday, regarding paying the money to them directly (I offered £20 / month), and skipping the bailiffs (using a letter template on this site)



I received this back, today.

I'll be completely honest, Milo, and say i'm not sure where the letter is, now.

If you only received it today, it would be helpful if you could have a look and put it safe in case they won't do a second AOE for some reason.

I want to deal directly with the council, with this, and am pretty much willing to stall for however long that takes, if they refuse to remove the debt from the EA. I refuse to support bailiff's, full stop.

Would you prefer to do this rather than a second AOE?

If you would, you do have the option to sit it out for the time stated in the LA's contract with the EA - usually 6 months (or longer as per legislation). During this time you would have to ensure the EA do not get access to your house, and especially do not 'levy' on your vehicle if you own one.

As long as they are not able to take control of any goods belonging to you or gain entry to your property, eventually the EA's will pass it back to the LA and their fees would, at that stage, be extinguished. Only you can decide if that is an option you want to take, having it hanging over your head all the time.

Do you suffer anxiety with your depression? It's something you would be advised to take into account when making a decision. Only you know how much your mental health issues affect you. £310 is a lot of money to save, your health is priceless.

[Guest]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

If you only received it today, it would be helpful if you could have a look and put it safe in case they won't do a second AOE for some reason.



Would you prefer to do this rather than a second AOE?

If you would, you do have the option to sit it out for the time stated in the LA's contract with the EA - usually 6 months (or longer as per legislation). During this time you would have to ensure the EA do not get access to your house, and especially do not 'levy' on your vehicle if you own one.

As long as they are not able to take control of any goods belonging to you or gain entry to your property, eventually the EA's will pass it back to the LA and their fees would, at that stage, be extinguished. Only you can decide if that is an option you want to take, having it hanging over your head all the time.

Do you suffer anxiety with your depression? It's something you would be advised to take into account when making a decision. Only you know how much your mental health issues affect you. £310 is a lot of money to save, your health is priceless.

I suffer from severe anxiety, Wombats, but this is unlikely to make that worse. It is Christmas, I am a single parent, and the last thing I want, is my mistake to affect what I can / cannot do for my child. However, I refuse to pay the £310. So if sitting it out for ~6 months will get the debt returned to the Council, sans fee's, then that is what i'll do. B&S irked me with the NoE requesting a £60 / week payment, straight from the off, and lots of places saying they will not reduce that.


They will not gain access to my property, and I have no car to levy on. So unless they can do some underhand tactic, which you consider worthy of perhaps addressing, i'll sit this one out.

[Wombats]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

Do you receive treatment for your mental health condition? If so, is this from a GP or under the care of a Consultant (or the Consultant directly)?

[Guest]

Re: Bristow & Sutor, and outstanding Council tax.

It's from my GP directly, Wombats. I am currently on 40mg of Citalopram. We were getting the 'main brunt' of the depression out of the way, and then shifting to counselling, but that seems a long way away still.