Council owes us £4,000 after sending bailiffs out

My wife and I lived in Chiswick, south London, for 20 years until 2017, when we moved to the south coast. We kept our house and rented it out, which Savills in Chiswick managed for us. In February we had a removal of goods notice on behalf of Ealing Council demanding immediate payment of £5,562, including fees. We had no clue why, but the bailiffs gave us no choice other than to pay it the same day, which we did, under duress.

It turned out that while Savills had been updating the council about changes to our tenants, the council had not acted on this information. After one tenant failed to pay their council tax — in error, not deliberately — the council held us responsible but without informing us directly. The first we knew about it was the bailiff’s demand.

The council has accepted responsibility, invoiced the correct parties (who we understand have paid) and has received our money from the bailiff company. We have been refunded £704 of the money we were incorrectly charged, but nearly six months later we are still owed £4,500 (£3,928 in council tax and £572 in bailiff fees).

We have spent hours and hours on the phone, completed online forms to claim a refund and lodge a complaint and, along with Savills, sent multiple emails and yet we have no idea when we will get our money back.

We have not had a single word of apology for the stress we were put through in February, nor for the utterly unacceptable, inexcusable delay in paying us back the money. In fact, we’ve yet to have direct contact from the council at all. We have no idea what else we can do.

• How to challenge a council tax band

Jill replies

You were responsible for council tax for a short while when the property was vacant, hence the difference in the amount you were charged (£5,562) and the amount you were owed (£5,204). A council representative had apparently told Savills that you should get the refund within four weeks, but 16 weeks on you were still waiting.

I asked the council to pay up. The next day it emailed you to say that it had not been told before February that Savills was managing your property or that another tenant had moved in. It said that if you provided your bank account details, it would forward the £4,500 to you. This has now been done.

The council told me that in January 2023 the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office told the council that your previous tenant, a diplomat, had moved out in August 2022. That tenant’s council tax account was closed and a demand notice was issued in your name on January 25, 2023. Reminders were sent in March and April, followed by a court summons in May last year. All were sent to your rental property because the council had no forwarding address for you. The council instructed enforcement agents in November 2023.

You had set up a forwarding service with the Post Office for the first year, but when this expired you were unable to renew it and were reliant on the tenant forwarding mail to you. The tenant who was there from August 2022 to November 2023 — a celebrity well known to anyone over the age of 50 — didn’t think to contact the council about paying council tax and was clearly content to bin official-looking letters rather than forwarding them to you.

The council said it was unable to find evidence that it had been notified that new tenants had moved into the property after August 2022 and before Savills contacted it in February this year to dispute the bill you had paid. Savills told you that it had provided information about the new tenant via a portal on the council’s website, but had not had a confirmation from the council. It’s a good warning for anyone — take a screenshot of the form so you have proof if there is a dispute later on.

The council also denied receiving any requests from you for a refund. As you have forwarded to me the increasingly desperate emails you sent to the council, I knew that was wrong, and a day later the council admitted finding your emails and apologised for its mistake.

You said: “After six months of banging our heads against a wall, one email to you and five days later you’ve managed to cut through the ineptitude and nonsense. We are both very grateful to you.”

• My disabled husband was turned away from our £5,500 Jet2 holiday

Stuck in limbo after my Klarna account was hacked

I was the victim of fraud via my Klarna account at the end of March. I had a text from Klarna which said that I had changed my mobile contact details. I hadn’t changed the number so I checked my Klarna account via the app on my mobile and to my horror another mobile number was on my account and there were three transactions that I hadn’t made.

I logged into my banking app, froze my account and called Royal Bank of Scotland to ask for advice, to stop my bank card and also the pending transactions. It told me that I needed to contact Klarna as only it could stop the transactions.

I called Klarna at about 11pm and it reassured me that my account would be blocked immediately and I wouldn’t be liable for the unauthorised transactions. I called again the next day to check everything was in motion and asked when I would get my money back as I had direct debits and other bills to pay. Again I was reassured it would be dealt with and I would be refunded soon.

I didn’t hear anything from Klarna for a week so I called again only to be told that it was being dealt with by the investigations team and that I would probably be refunded within ten days. This didn’t happen. After speaking to Klarna again, I logged the fraud with the police and called RBS to claim a chargeback against Klarna. An RBS manager suggested I log in to my banking app and told me how to dispute the transactions to claim a chargeback on the basis of goods ordered and not received, even though I didn’t order them. After seven days my claim was rejected as it didn’t fit the criteria.

I told Klarna that RBS couldn’t carry out the chargeback and yesterday, May 23, I got an email apologising for the length of time it was taking to resolve my problem and that the investigation team would contact me as soon as they could. The following day I had two final demands for legitimate payments that I needed to make, but I can’t as my account is blocked while the investigation is ongoing. This is putting my credit record at risk. I’m at the end of my tether and don’t know where to turn.

• HSBC error left me with no money to pay for Mum’s funeral

Jill replies

In fact there were four unauthorised transactions made via your Klarna account, totalling £368.32. This money had already been taken from your account and you wanted it refunded. You were also worried that your credit record would be affected by the legitimate debts which you couldn’t pay because your Klarna account was frozen.

I asked Klarna to look into your case. The same day it told me that it had issued a refund for £368.32 and that there was no negative impact on your credit record. But it told you the opposite. While no markers had been placed on your credit record because of the fraudulent transactions, Klarna had placed one on your file for one of the legitimate transactions that you hadn’t been able to pay.

A few days later Klarna emailed you again to say it could not close your account because there was still an outstanding balance which had been passed on to a debt collection agency.

I contacted Klarna again, which admitted the email should not have been sent to you. Your account is now closed, your data has been removed from the Klarna system, all debts have been erased and negative marks removed from your credit file.

• Consumer rights UK: what you need to know

My travel policy is valid, but insurer won’t pay out for missed cruise

I need your help with a disputed travel insurance claim with Claims Settlement Agencies (CSA), part of the claims management company Gallagher Bassett. I paid the balance for a P&O cruise to the Norwegian fjords on February 12. On the same day I bought travel insurance, declaring that I had hypertension for which I took two medications. I wasn’t aware of any other health issues at that time.

On February 16 I started to experience severe abdominal pain. It was the weekend and I couldn’t get an appointment with my GP but the surgery arranged for me to see a doctor at the hospital where I was diagnosed with a left inguinal hernia.

I was referred to a hospital in Leicester and saw a consultant on March 25 who confirmed the diagnosis and the need for a hernia repair. I was told that I would have to wait up to eight weeks for surgery and would then need four to six weeks to recover.

This would have taken us beyond the departure date for our holiday and, given that I would be unfit to travel, we decided to cancel and use that money for me to have private treatment. P&O refunded half the holiday cost — £2,339 — within a few days.

I saw a private consultant and was booked in for surgery on April 11. However, two days before, they discovered that I had atrial fibrillation. My condition deteriorated and I have now been diagnosed with heart failure.

I claimed on my travel policy for the remaining half of the holiday costs, but CSA says that my insurance policy was not taken out until April 12 and that I was on a hospital waiting list at that time. This is nonsense. The company has a copy of my credit card statement which shows the balance being paid to P&O on February 12 and, on the same day, a payment of £688.08 for the insurance premium.

Please can you help? I will be 81 next month, struggling to breathe and stressed out of my mind with the unexpected diagnosis of heart failure when I have prided myself on how fit and active I was.

Jill replies

Your hernia developed very suddenly with no obvious cause. Although it caused you a lot of pain, it was possibly just as well it developed when it did, so that your heart problems were discovered.

I forwarded your letter and a copy of your bank statement showing the payment for your travel policy going out of your account on February 12. Gallagher Bassett then called you to say your claim had been passed to CSA for consideration, and a week later it settled your claim for £2,339. Neither of us can understand why your claim was ever disputed.

Can we help you?

Email [email protected] or write to Question of Money, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF. Please send only copies of original documents. Letters should be exclusive to The Sunday Times. Advice is offered without legal responsibility and we regret that we cannot reply to everyone who contacts us.