The overuse and misuse of bailiffs by Hounslow Council
“Of the 8,000 people Hounslow Council have set the bailiffs on to make sure the good people of Grove Park aren't bother by too much traffic, there will almost certainly be some cases like this. The council has financial imperatives that means it has to do what it can to balance the books but the human cost isn't going to appear on the ledger.” “This represents 13,000 cases of individual misery and people whose lives have got into such a state that they didn't have the means to pay a £130 fine. Now they have burly men knocking on their doors to take away their possessions. For Cllr Dunne to suggest this is okay because 88% of people fined aren't locals shows a loss of perspective as the numbers suggest at least 1,000 local people have had the bailiffs set on them. It is very probable that we aren't hearing much about this despite the huge scale because they are ashamed of what has happened to them.” I am unable to comment on 999 of the cases but I can comment on one, mine. Back in 2020 some of you may remember we had a pandemic, and the world was shut down. As soon as lockdown was announced I applied for council tax benefit. As I am self-employed it is difficult to fill in their forms and left over half of it blank. A few weeks later I hadn’t received any response so I contacted John Todd mainly to find out if the council offices were still open or if they had been shut down as well. He forwarded my email to the council and I got a reply the same day, they had decided to reject my claim and the paperwork would be sent out soon which would allow me to appeal. Having only filled out half the form I intended to appeal but the paperwork never arrived. I chased them a few times, but with the world in lockdown and a lot of people far worse off than me, I didn’t put too much effort into chasing them as they were not chasing me for payment. When they did get round to chasing me for payment, I contacted them and told them I still had not received the rejection notice. At first they told me they couldn’t resend it, then eventually they agreed to resend it, in subsequent letters they have referred to the duplicate date which makes me wonder if the original ever existed. It never arrived in the post, I contacted them again and they said they would email it. I never received it, I offered to go to their offices to collect it, but they couldn’t do that. I did eventually try to appeal their decision but was unable to because I had not received a rejection notice! At the same time my neighbour was also having issues with her council tax. She had dementia that was getting worse so I contacted Adult Social Services in 2019 and they visited, they asked her if she wanted any help and she said “No, Colin does it all for me” I begged them to help, but they said they couldn’t as she had said she didn’t want it. I asked them if they could organise her single person allowance as she was being overcharged for her council tax. They said as she had dementia she would receive a 100% discount. I chased it up, but as she wasn’t registered with dementia they couldn’t discount it and I couldn’t apply for her single person discount as it wasn’t my account. Soon after she ended up in hospital for a few months and a next of kin I had never met before came to help. The council also put in place a care package so she was visited three times a day. With lockdown announced a few weeks later and her now having weekly and daily visits I stepped away from helping her. In early 2021 the next of kin and adult social services fell out and the next of kin walked away, I got involved again as there were lots of things the daily carers wouldn’t do as it is not their job. In June 2021 a letter arrived from the council tax, they were still charging her, it was only sent because her bank account had been closed and the outstanding amount was showing as being owed. So how does someone with dementia remember to apply for their council tax discount? You would like to think the NHS would contact the council, but I doubt that happens. You would have thought the day the council signed paperwork in the Court of Protection to look after her “property and affairs” would be the day they stop charging, but I have a copy of the paperwork dated November 2020, so after six months the council still hadn’t told the council to stop charging her. So when do they stop charging council tax? I know that Adult Social Service is an underfunded and overworked department so I assumed is was an error that would be fixed, but they didn’t want to do anything and never replied to me. I eventually contacted my three councillors, only John Todd replied and forwarded my complaints directly to the council. My primary complaint was communication, the other problems could be fixed if they spoke to me, but they failed again. I ended up making five separate official complaints to the council, they failed to respond to them as well. I complained to the ombudsman and the council lied to them. I complained again to the ombudsman that the council had lied and I had paid someone to fix the problem the day after I received their reply. The ombudsman said if the problem had been fixed there was nothing further to investigate even though they had lied. I also asked when they would be looking at my other complaints but was told I would have to submit them separately to them as well (the opposite of the advice they gave me before). I didn’t bother, if the council are allowed to lie to them there isn’t much point. I did also contact Ruth Cadbury and after seven weeks a case worker sent me this “Thank you for your email to Ruth Cadbury MP. I am so sorry for the delay in responding to you. I have been looking through older cases and have found that my previous email to you did not send properly. I can only apologise for this.” Not the best reply to someone that is complaining about poor communication! In September 2021 I had accused the council tax department of stealing my neighbours money. In November the council tax department sent a court summons I never received and a few weeks later I had the bailiffs knocking on my door on a Sunday. I told him to leave as there was no way for me to contact the council on a Sunday. The following day I contacted the council and my account was put on hold until the “backroom team” could look at it. Having spent far too many hours on the phone to the council and having emailed them countless times, the “backroom team” are either in a blackhole or are non-existent, they are never able to do what the telephone staff promise and letters and emails constantly go missing. They did eventually agree to review my case but to apply for the council tax benefit I was told, “I understand that you are self-employed it will therefore be necessary for you to provide audited accounts for the financial years ending April 2020, April 2021 and Apr 2022.” Only two problems providing that information. One audited accounts are for companies that have a turnover of £10.2m, savings of £5.1m, or more than 50 employees. It is council policy to request audited accounts for those claiming benefit, I was repeatedly asked to provide them. If that wasn’t difficult enough the Apr 2022 accounts were not due until Jan 2023, in June 2022 when they were requested they didn’t exist. I did send them copies of the pages that were sent to HMRC in 2020 and 2021, but they said that was insufficient proof of earnings. In a fit of rage one day I decided to pay the bailiffs, the amount of time it was taking up was costing more than the debt. I went to my bank but they refused to transfer money to the bailiff because the account was marked as a suspicious account. I phoned the bailiffs and told them, they asked me to pay in cash! I may have watched too many Jim Browning videos, I thought they were going to ask for Target gift cards next. I paid my 21-22 council tax in full. I was paying my 22-23 bill when I received a reminder for late payment, after a few phone calls I found out they has misallocated my payment and I was told it would be fixed. It wasn’t and I received a court summons. I paid the entire year and asked the council for a court appearance time (they were still using covid rules, you have to request a time rather than just turn up). I phoned twice and both phone calls I was told as I wanted to plead not guilty they would not give me a court appearance time, so I was unable to defend myself in court again. With my mental health deteriorating wondering who do I ask for help next, my physical health plummeted. In Jan 23 I ended up in a wheelchair because of two flattened discs in my back, I got an abscess as well and the doctors gave me Ciprofloxacin but it didn’t make me better. If you would like some further reading you can have a look here.. This article is from 3 months after I took Ciprofloxacin. https://www.bmj.com/bmj/section-pdf/1084161?path=/bmj/381/8388/This_Week.full.pdf They have now changed the medical advice, since 26th September I wouldn’t have been prescribed it. https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/fluoroquinolone-antibiotics-suicidal-thoughts-and-behaviour I was prescribed it twice and ended up locking myself indoors and didn’t communicate with anyone for weeks. I eventually realised it was the medication and things have become easier, but every time I thought about dealing with the council either for myself of my neighbour I went into a downward spiral. Ignoring my problems was the only way I could cope, leaving things for a few weeks isn’t a problem, but as the weeks became months, I started asking for help. I was put in contact with Mind who have a department that specialises in debt management. My Mental Health Worker contacted the council tax department so they could find out how to discuss my account on my behalf, there is no clear information on their website. A Revenues Officer replied “We have been contacted by (Mental Health Worker) asking for information about your Council Tax account. As we do not have written authorisation to discuss with (them) I cannot give (them) the information (they) was requesting so I am contacting you.” Strange how a department that used GDPR as an excuse, just ignore the rules when it suits them. As a third party to my data (my email) they can only use it for the reason specified. Contacting me about my account details was not the reason specified. With the information they have being incorrect and them making it clear they would not be reviewing it by adding “The balances for 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 are with the enforcement agent Newlyn and the 2023/2024 balance is with enforcement agent CDER. You will need to contact them to make payment for these.” With my state of mind I could only consider this as being threatening. I was moments away from getting into my car and driving to Hounslow House. You cannot drive through the front of the building, they are obviously worried someone might do that and they have put loads of bollards to prevent it. So I was going to walk to the top of their entrance area and jump, that way when they walked into the building they would remember it was them that pushed me. Thankfully I had a moment of clarity and contacted my Mental Health Worker who calmed me down and told me to ignore them, but it all still remains unresolved four years later all because of various departments failing to communicate, requests for information that doesn’t exist and too much computerisation replacing staff. So is the use of bailiffs going to kill people, maybe, for some it will be the moment they feel they have lost control and there is no other option. Are the council concerned about mental health, No! Even after being contacted by a Mental Health Worker from Mind to tell them not to contact me directly because they are causing me to be suicidal, they still send round the bailiffs!
Colin Potter ● 36d5 Comments ● 32d