Whopping big bill ...ssoooooo annoyed!!!

[soulem]

My partner and I have only recently statred living together and I sent off the Working Tax Credit forms last week in the hope that we will be entitled to something. Anyway yesterday morning a letter arrives addressed to my OH telling him he has to pay £1400 by the 23rd Nov!!!!!(yes, the day he received the letter!!!!) He rang them and they said that he and his ex wife were over paid in 2003/2004 so he has to pay it back!!! I am soooooooooo annoyed, why isnt she liable to any of it!! Surley if they were both receiving the money then they should split the payment and each be liable to £700!!!! OH is worried that bailiffs will turn up, if they do they will get a hard time from me as everything in the house has been bought by me,NOT OH! I refuse to hand over my belongings to pay a debt of which I didnt receive a penny!!!!

Anyone else had a similar thing happen???

 

[Sherlock]

You can arrange for them to deduct a set amount each month I think. I owed the tax man a certain amount and they agreed to take it from my salary till it was cleared. TBH, it wasn't very nice as I was short a bit for a year but I didn't have the headache of working it out, that was for my boss to calculate and the tax people.

I'd suggest enquiring if his ex wife is liable for half the amount and if not, why not. There may be a way of clearing this up before it gets more upsetting.

FWIW, if you offer to pay something, they won't go so far as to send baliffs and so on. That's not how it generally works and its only when payments are missed or defaulted etc that things like that happen. Or else when its private sector. But as this is a Gov. department I am sure your OH can go in and discuss his options and find out why the debt all seems to be on him alone. Also the fact he only received the letter the day the debt was due I think they would give him leeway. I am sure he can agree a set amount each month to repay. He needs to talk to them again.

 

[soulem]

Thanks for the reply Sherlock!!

The debt is apparently on hold, he ahs to wait for a summons to come in the post before anything else will be done. Apparently they have been trying to get hold of him for a year, but as he has moved a lot they havent gotten hold of him, they only knew where he was because I sent the form off!! He didnt know they looking for him, so its not his fault it has gone on so long!

Fingers crossed nothing bad happens, and that we get to pay it off little by little!