I would love to get a little advice on how to proceed with an unpleasant experience with a baliff yesterday.
I run a small business that recently left its office space in Islington (30th June). As I spend a lot of time out of the country, our landlord said they would notify the council that we had left and I also e-mailed the council asking for a final statement of what we owed. At this point we had paid the April installment but not the May and June installments.
Subsequently it transpired that Islington Council had got a court judgement against us for £4000 (for the whole years rates) and an enforcement officer had visited our old office in August to try and enforce this.
At no time have I actually received any notification that this was happening and to date I still have not seen the court documents.
I spoke with the enforcement agent on the phone and told him this was all a mistake and that I would sort it out with the Council and that we didn't owe the money. I subsequently paid what I though the outstanding amount was and sent an e-mail to the council to that effect stating clearly that I assumed that I would not need to pay the enforcement fees.
I had a response from the council say the account had been closed AS PER MY REQUEST (my highlight) and that as I had overpaid I would receive a refund of £21.
Clearly I assumed that the matter was resolved.
Yesterday my wife called me to tell me that baliffs were at the door threatening to take our car, my sons' motorbike and my son's friends car that was on my driveway and that we owed them £1200.
Luckily I was not too far from home so managed to intervene.
The main issues for me is that the baliff clearly lied to me. I requested a copy of the court document - he declined to show me this but referred me to the notice of entry document he had served us with.
I told him that a) this was a company debt and why was he trying to enforce this at a residential address that was not the address of the company and b) all these goods anyway did not belong to the company and c) we didn't owe the money anyway as evidenced by the e-mail from the council.
He told me that the judgement was for my home address (a lie, whilst I have not seen it, it will have been for the company address as they appeared to not know that we had moved out). Unfortunately due to the stress of the situation I didn't press him for the court documents which he was clearly not keen to show me as it would have exposed his lie.
He rang the council and discovered that we had paid the rates but that the enforcement fee still applied which was £310. The council said he should enforce this (an issue I have taken up with the council).
He insisted that I prove that the vehicles did not belong to the company which I was able to do for my son's motorbike but our own car is 9 years old and he wasn't happy with the V5 document, the insurance or the orignal HP agreement (paid off some time ago). Also for my son's friends car we obviously had no documents.
He said pay up or they would clamp all the cars and send for a lorry to take them away immediately and sell them at auction (for an apparent debt of £310, value of vehicles approx.£15,000).
Knowing that once I had paid I would never see this money again and feeling very angry that this was happening as as far as I was concerned I didn't owe this money I was loath to pay this. The enforcement agent continually accused me of deliberately trying to avoid the enforcement fee by dealing with the Council rather than him, despite the point I made to him that I would be resolving this with the council as I know that these agents will not waive there fees on the say so of the debtor but only from their client.
I wasn't able to get hold of anyone at the council on the phone (no surprise there) but having paid the £310 as I really didn't want to have property not belonging to me clamped and removed, I subsequently e-mailed the council expressing my anger and suggesting that they reimburse me.
Credit to the council they immediately sent me an e-mail saying that they would instruct the enforcement agent to refund the money straightaway and asked for my bank details for this to be done. Needless to say this has not been actioned so far and to be honest I suspect ths will take some time to recover.
On reflection I am now so pissed off about this that I want to make a formal compalint to the council and to the enforcement company (Rundles) about the actions of their agent. (I have most of the altercations on video) and I want to get my money back immediately in the process.
All these altercations took place outside my house in full view of the neighbours, initially the agents were dealing with my wife and were extremly threatening and forceful with her and upset her a great deal, they then subsequently lied to me and as far as I am concerned, were coming on to my home property with absolutely no authority whatsover to try an enforce a debt that was owed by a company (limited) at a completly diferent address.
I would really appreciate a view in terms of how far they have abused their position in this situation as whilst the money is relatively small amount, I really do feel that if this sort of behaviour is ignored and not dealt with it will result in these sort of practices continuing and perhaps against people a lot more vunerable and unable to pay than me.
Many thanks in advance
Philip
I run a small business that recently left its office space in Islington (30th June). As I spend a lot of time out of the country, our landlord said they would notify the council that we had left and I also e-mailed the council asking for a final statement of what we owed. At this point we had paid the April installment but not the May and June installments.
Subsequently it transpired that Islington Council had got a court judgement against us for £4000 (for the whole years rates) and an enforcement officer had visited our old office in August to try and enforce this.
At no time have I actually received any notification that this was happening and to date I still have not seen the court documents.
I spoke with the enforcement agent on the phone and told him this was all a mistake and that I would sort it out with the Council and that we didn't owe the money. I subsequently paid what I though the outstanding amount was and sent an e-mail to the council to that effect stating clearly that I assumed that I would not need to pay the enforcement fees.
I had a response from the council say the account had been closed AS PER MY REQUEST (my highlight) and that as I had overpaid I would receive a refund of £21.
Clearly I assumed that the matter was resolved.
Yesterday my wife called me to tell me that baliffs were at the door threatening to take our car, my sons' motorbike and my son's friends car that was on my driveway and that we owed them £1200.
Luckily I was not too far from home so managed to intervene.
The main issues for me is that the baliff clearly lied to me. I requested a copy of the court document - he declined to show me this but referred me to the notice of entry document he had served us with.
I told him that a) this was a company debt and why was he trying to enforce this at a residential address that was not the address of the company and b) all these goods anyway did not belong to the company and c) we didn't owe the money anyway as evidenced by the e-mail from the council.
He told me that the judgement was for my home address (a lie, whilst I have not seen it, it will have been for the company address as they appeared to not know that we had moved out). Unfortunately due to the stress of the situation I didn't press him for the court documents which he was clearly not keen to show me as it would have exposed his lie.
He rang the council and discovered that we had paid the rates but that the enforcement fee still applied which was £310. The council said he should enforce this (an issue I have taken up with the council).
He insisted that I prove that the vehicles did not belong to the company which I was able to do for my son's motorbike but our own car is 9 years old and he wasn't happy with the V5 document, the insurance or the orignal HP agreement (paid off some time ago). Also for my son's friends car we obviously had no documents.
He said pay up or they would clamp all the cars and send for a lorry to take them away immediately and sell them at auction (for an apparent debt of £310, value of vehicles approx.£15,000).
Knowing that once I had paid I would never see this money again and feeling very angry that this was happening as as far as I was concerned I didn't owe this money I was loath to pay this. The enforcement agent continually accused me of deliberately trying to avoid the enforcement fee by dealing with the Council rather than him, despite the point I made to him that I would be resolving this with the council as I know that these agents will not waive there fees on the say so of the debtor but only from their client.
I wasn't able to get hold of anyone at the council on the phone (no surprise there) but having paid the £310 as I really didn't want to have property not belonging to me clamped and removed, I subsequently e-mailed the council expressing my anger and suggesting that they reimburse me.
Credit to the council they immediately sent me an e-mail saying that they would instruct the enforcement agent to refund the money straightaway and asked for my bank details for this to be done. Needless to say this has not been actioned so far and to be honest I suspect ths will take some time to recover.
On reflection I am now so pissed off about this that I want to make a formal compalint to the council and to the enforcement company (Rundles) about the actions of their agent. (I have most of the altercations on video) and I want to get my money back immediately in the process.
All these altercations took place outside my house in full view of the neighbours, initially the agents were dealing with my wife and were extremly threatening and forceful with her and upset her a great deal, they then subsequently lied to me and as far as I am concerned, were coming on to my home property with absolutely no authority whatsover to try an enforce a debt that was owed by a company (limited) at a completly diferent address.
I would really appreciate a view in terms of how far they have abused their position in this situation as whilst the money is relatively small amount, I really do feel that if this sort of behaviour is ignored and not dealt with it will result in these sort of practices continuing and perhaps against people a lot more vunerable and unable to pay than me.
Many thanks in advance
Philip
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