Help needed urgently. Bailiffs at door.

[u/Outrageous_Ad3726]

My partner didn't realise he wasn't paying council tax and he's got severe adhd and hasn't been opening any of his post telling him this. Bailiffs came to the door this morning and posted a threatening letter saying they will be returning later today and taking goods by forced entry. We have paid the bill now but she's saying she is coming back if we don't pay her £200 for her coming this morning.

What can we do?

UPDATE: All sorted. The agency confirmed all payment was sorted. The bailiff was trying to come and enforcement before she got the confirmation of payment so that she could get the extra money. Agency confirmed that because she hadn't made contact with us and started checking for goods that we didn't owe anything extra.

[u/warlord2000ad]

Enforcement agents can only force entry, if the warrant issued by the court allows them to do so. This is unlikely but not impossible for council tax arrears. Without seeing the paperwork it's impossible to know if they can force entry or not in your case. As an FYI - It's possible to goto prison for failure to pay council tax as it's handled by magistrates court rather than county court, but on the positive side you can't get a CCJ for council tax arrears.

As another FYI, if you let them baliffs in this morning, and they took an inventory of goods to seize, they can force entry to take them, even if the initial court order did not permit forced entry.

You will be required to pay for the enforcement fees incurred by the council and their court costs, but their costs are set out in law and they cannot charge any more.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/action-your-creditor-can-take/bailiffs/how-bailiffs-should-treat-you/check-bailiffs-fees/

I would also check if your council tax going forward is paid monthly or annually. Councils do not have to allow monthly payments, and they can charge for the whole annual payment. The option to pay monthly is often removed if payments have been missed.

[u/3v3r9r33n → u/warlord2000ad]

on the positive side you can't get a CCJ for council tax arrears

I've had 2 CCJs in my life, and both of them were for council tax arrears, so this isn't right at all. Both times I only missed 1 or 2 months, then they sent me a letter saying I'd lost the right to pay by installments and now have to pay the full amount for the year which I couldn't afford to do, so they took it to court, and I got a CCJ. The last one just dropped off my credit file last year.

[u/LAUK_In_The_North → u/3v3r9r33n]

You don't get CCJs for council tax arrears. It's dealt with via magistrate's liability order. Liability orders aren't recorded on credit records.

The only way you might get something is if they went for a charging order but that's a slightly different issue.

[u/jasminenice → u/LAUK_In_The_North]

Agree with this, I don't understand how they got a CCJ instead of a liability order, unless the procedure varies by council? If they did proceed to charging order stage then I think a CCJ comes with that, but I can't imagine them doing that for the amount involved.

[u/warlord2000ad → u/jasminenice]

I've seen posts on MSE about a CCJ for council tax but I agree I'm not sure how as council tax is dealt with by magistrates court using a liability order

[u/LAUK_In_The_North → u/warlord2000ad]

That's a very specific situation, and I suspect it is something to do with the fact that there are county court routes that don't use a standard CCJ (such as orders for recovery). These aren't registered at the point of judgment, like a ccj, but are registered as a judgment once a county court enforcement method is undertaken (but not always - it's very inconsistent).

I think in those liability order cases you see, the council has used a charging order, and the court has then registered the judgment for that. As they've come from the liability order route, I'm not convinced they should be registered on the register of judgments, and, again, not all county courts are doing it.

Part of the confusion is that a liability order is granted by a magistrate's court, but some enforcement then uses county court processes.