Councils need us but how can we prove it?
We have recently been working for Burnley Council to locate Landlords who have left properties in a state of disrepair; the trial was a real success and has lead to Burnley Council using our services on a regular basis.
We would love to work with other councils to help them recover debts owed to them. Just today, we came across this piece on the This Is Scunthorpe website about North Lincolnshire Council writing off over one million pound in debt! According to Nigel_F, a reporter at This Is Scunthorpe North Lincolnshire Council has written the money off, as it has proved irrecoverable or uneconomical to pursue! – We suggest that they should give us a call, we are sure they will be pleasantly surprised at what we can do for them, and on a NO TRACE NO FEE basis!
North Lincolnshire Council says it has a good record for recovering council tax, with figures above the national and regional average. This is great news and proves that they have been working hard to locate their debtors and then collect money from them. We feel that one million quid is a bit too much to write off in one go though, what harm could come from sending a batch of work over to us on a no find no fee basis and letting us track down some of these people?
The authority says it is almost impossible to recover this money because debtors have been declared bankrupt, have died, or have left the area without trace. The council are right about the unfortunate souls who have passed away, it is probably best to write this money off and its true there is not much that to be done with the bankrupted ones. We still think that this will still leave over 90% of the outstanding debtors fair game to be tracked down, something that we are very specialised at doing, ask Burnley Council!
Councillor Neil Poole, of Messingham, Cabinet Member for Finance, Procurement and IT, said: “Every means at our disposal is used to pursue these debts, but there comes a point when they have to be written off for this year’s accounts.
We would urge Mr Poole to give us and a ring and what means we have at our disposal and let us see what we can do to help the council recover any of this outstanding debt. Especially with our discounts available for bulk instructions!
The council says people can help keep housing benefit overpayments down by reporting any benefit fraud. Call 01724 296137, email benefits@northlincs.gov.uk or visit www.northlincs.gov.uk
If you would like to locate a debtor, have a look at our debtor tracing service.