Grumpy old woman

[Tatilde]

I'm fed up with the total incompetence of government departments. Earlier this week my husband received in the same mail delivery, 27 letters from HM Revenue and Customs. Each letter contained 4 or 5 notices of late return filing penalty of £100 each for an employee who now longer works for my husband. A total of over £12,000!
After a lengthy phone call ( not freephone of course), the matter was resolved, hopefully, and my husband was advised to bin all the letters.
And now my daughter's car has been clamped. She declared the car SORN but was clamped because she didn't advise the DVLA that she hadn't received a letter from them to say that she had advised them in the first place!
I also know of several people, us included, who have not received a reminder from the DVLA to re-declare SORN, and were fined, despite being assured by the DVLA that reminders were sent!


Linkback: https://www.enjoykalkan.com/forum/index.php?topic=4105.0

[Enişte]

When we moved to Kalkan, I paid up to date all bills including council tax and closed all direct debits.  My aged father then received three angry letters from the local council about an outstanding council tax bill, 1p!  Each of these must have cost the council 30p or so each to send plus stationery costs.  The last threatened legal action until a simple e-mail sorted things out!  The cause of the problem - computer rounding error.  Does no-one check these things?

[Lorretta]

I recently had the unedifying experience of having to sign on. I have been in full time employment for 29 years less a 5 year break 21 years ago when I had my daughter. However when I tried to claim Job seekers allownace I was told that I had not made enough NI contributions! It took 8 weeks to sort out and ended up with me having to contact ex employers (luckily I had worked there for 13 years) to get them to send copies of my payslips which then had to be forwarded to the relevant government agency. Grrrrrrrr.
Recently, my Mum, who has terminal cancer applied for attendance allowance as my sister had given up work to care for her. I helped my Mum fill in the forms all 35 pages! Guess what they claimed they hadn't received them, so we had to fill them out again. I sent them recorded delivery at a cost of £5.60. Voila, they received them.

[onelove]

It just makes me want to run away.............and live in Kalkan 

[Lorretta]

I know what you mean!

[itstime]

Hi Loretta
Sorry to hear about your mum. Someone should have been able to advise you that if anyone has a terminal illness they can claim Attendance Allowance or Disability Living Allowance (depending on their age) under the DS1500 rule which means that only the first few pages of the form need to be completed. The persons GP or consultant has to sign the form to confirm that the diagnosis has been made but other than that should be straightforward. A big problem with the benefits system is the lack of public awareness about it but advice can be sought from your local Social services department Welfare Rights Service.

[Lorretta]

Hi itstime,
the form we filled in didn't have to be signed by a GP but it did say that they had the right to contact the GP. My Mum is now in receipt of attendance allowance but thank you very much for your advice.

[Chrissie]

Hi ,if your Mum has a District Nurse,or McMillan Nurse they will support the application and liase with the G.P. to ensure DS 1500 is sent with the form when it is completed.
Chrissie.