Latest news with #bailiffs
The Sun
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Pregnant Katherine Ryan horrified as she's hounded by bailiffs over £10,000 council tax bill
KATHERINE Ryan has revealed she's been hounded by bailiffs and treated like a tax dodger after council blunder saw her wrongly held responsible for £10,000 in unpaid bills. The comedian, 42, says she was footing the council tax bill for her tenants at a London flat she owns with husband Bobby ever since they rented it out in October 2023. 4 She paid the charge voluntarily - as a gesture of goodwill - to make things easier for her renters in the gothic church conversion in Crouch End. But she was shocked to then discover that Haringey Council believed she still lived there, classed the property as a second home, and hiked her council tax by 200%. When payments didn't match the inflated charge, they sent bailiffs to her house. Speaking on her podcast Telling Everybody Everything, Katherine said she sent them the tenancy agreement as proof that it wasn't her second home, and explained: "We pay the council tax because we want to make it seamless for everyone, but we don't live there.' 'I never got a reply. I emailed four times,' she added. 'I called and was on hold for 40 minutes - then they just sent me back to the switchboard.' Katherine, who is pregnant with her fourth child, was forced to take matters into her own hands last week and travelled to the council's Wood Green office herself. 'I finally spoke to a woman who said, 'Oh yeah, we didn't receive any of your letters.'' She was then told that, legally, landlords aren't responsible for council tax if the property is tenanted - unless it's classed as a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO). Because the tenancy agreement hadn't been logged, the council wrongly billed her and added the second-home premium. 'She goes, 'We can't go after you for council tax because you don't live there.' And I was like, 'Well, apparently you can - I've paid you ten grand and you've sent bailiffs to my house. Twice.'' Katherine was told she could apply for a refund but that the council would now send her tenants a backdated bill for the entire period. 'I was like, 'What!? You're going to send my tenants a bill for ten grand dating back two years?' She's like, 'Yep... Sometimes this causes problems - tell them not to freak out.'' She asked if the credit could be transferred but was told the tenants were 'just going to get a big bill.' 'Luckily, I'm in contact with the tenants,' she said. 'They trust me... But the bureaucracy! What if English wasn't my first language? 'Navigating all of this, there's got to be a better way.' 4
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Daily Mail
Rough sleepers outside Oxford Street's former John Lewis flagship after migrant 'shanty town' cleared out
Migrants slept in white duvets on Oxford Street overnight after people were evicted from the area last week. The group, which set up camp outside the shopping destination's John Lewis, were seen in a line sitting on their duvets as they rested and smoked cigarettes this morning. Just fewer than 10 people were seen gathered on the pavement outside the department store as shoppers and commuters walked around them. The new camp has been spotted just days after a 'tent city' full of homeless people in the area was broken up. Enforcement teams were called in on Friday to tear down the encampment which blighted Hyde Park Corner for months. The action was taken by Transport for London (TfL), which applied for a possession order to retake the land. MailOnline understands it was the fourth such time the site had been cleared in the last 12 months. The camp was next to London's West End tourist Mecca, and just a stone's throw away from Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Speaker's Corner, as well as Oxford Street. Migrants sleeping in new white duvets outside John Lewis on London's Oxford Street today Dramatic pictures on Friday showed groups of people from the squalid site being moved on by officers, some of whom appeared to be wearing stab vests. Occupants of the camp were forced to rip down dwellings made of tarpaulin sheeting while bailiffs watched on. Some from the tent city were pictured hauling grubby-looking mattresses after being evicted. Security teams comprising dog-handling units maintained a presence at the former campsite today. For months the prime city centre spot, opposite The Dorchester - a famous hotel in Park Lane - has been plagued by people living rough. Up to 100 migrants were reportedly camped at the site at one point, with some defiantly saying they won't go anywhere. But their presence ignited fury from exasperated local residents, who wanted the rough sleepers turfed out. When MailOnline visited a previous Mayfair location last year, those living there insisted they were going nowhere. 'We don't have any money [to go anywhere else]. We will just stay here until we can find something,' said someone from the group - which at the time was believed to be made up mainly of Bosnians. The eyesore was just yards from an Aston Martin showroom and other prestigious hotels like the Beaumont, the Hyatt Regency and the Connaught. But for the tycoons looking out on the camp from their penthouses, were reportedly furious at allegedly seeing people drinking at 7am and using Hyde Park's shrubberies as toilets.
Daily Mail
7 days ago
- Daily Mail
Welcome to London... Bailiffs tearing down a migrant 'shanty town', a fatal stabbing in Knightsbridge, and the rich fleeing. Another week in our tried, tarnished and dangerous capital
Six o'clock yesterday morning and the quiet of London 's Park Lane was shattered. More than 50 bailiffs had arrived to break up the sprawling migrant camp that had taken root over recent months in one of the world's most exclusive postcodes. A scraggy array of tents had been occupying the road's grassy central reservation, just a couple of hundred yards from a previous encampment that had been dismantled. Once again, washing lines flapped with tired-looking underwear, pots and pans were piled high, and men sat in the sun gambling huge piles of cash. But just after dawn it was all over. Amid angry exchanges and threatening words, the 30-odd migrants, men and women, started packing up their belongings into M&S shopping trolleys and wheeling them slowly towards Marble Arch as the clean-up team swooped and the open-top tourist buses started to rumble past. This was not the only alarming and unsettling scene to mar this expensive area of the capital. Only two days before, Blue Stevens, a 24-year-old dad from Hampshire, was killed on a nearby Knightsbridge street corner by a masked mugger. He was just outside the Nusr-Et Steakhouse, where a wagyu tomahawk steak costs £630, with his partner Tayla when the robber swung up on a bike. Some reports suggest that they tried to snatch his watch but police are looking at all possible motives. Mr Stevens resisted, was stabbed in the chest and collapsed as Tayla, hysterical, screamed 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' Desperate efforts were made to revive him, but he bled out on the pavement and the mugger fled. All in broad daylight. Welcome to London. Our wonderful capital city lately seems to have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Endless stories report that the city is increasingly lawless, dirty and dangerous, with an epidemic of violent stabbings, muggings and robberies by organised moped gangs known as 'Rolex Rippers' in posh, and what used to feel like safe, bits of London, swooping on anything that glitters and glistens; watches (ideally Rolexes), designer bags, jewellery, cars. That its restaurants are closing in droves. That there has been an exodus of firms listing on the London Stock Exchange. That the top-end property markets are wobbling and its glossy draw and international cachet are fading. And that those with money are leaving en masse thanks to a combination of spiralling security issues and Labour's crazily punitive taxes aimed at the city's non-doms – wealthy foreigners who were not born here, but are often the only ones who can afford to live in Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair townhouses and the £200 million apartments in One Hyde Park. Fleeing in record numbers, to Milan, Geneva, Dubai, Portugal. Anywhere, frankly, but here. According to a recent report on global wealth by Henley & Partners, in 2024 the UK lost more millionaire residents than any city in the world except for Moscow – with 9,500 high-net-worth individuals departing in just 12 months. The trigger was apparently Labour's controversial inheritance tax law, which means that, for the first time, all global assets (instead of just UK ones) owned by non-doms are subject to 40 per cent tax after ten years in the UK. Everything. Regardless of whether it was inherited, generated or held outside the UK. 'The stupidity of this is beyond comprehension,' says Trevor Abrahamson of Glentree Estates. 'If you want them to pay tax, they will pay tax. But not on everything.' Two of his clients – Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel magnate, and Norwegian shipping magnate, John Fredriksen – both great Anglophiles, have already left for Dubai. 'They're wealth creators,' says Mr Abrahamson. 'Which idiotic country would create an environment so they leave?' The issue is not that they should not be taxed. Of course they should. But the way it's been done. Because these people are sophisticated and supremely mobile they are simply upping sticks to avoid payment. And taking with them their families, staff, money, cars, planes and, perhaps most importantly for the future of London, their buying power. Because while we might not all love the global super-rich – and, let's face it, from a distance there is much to dislike, particularly the flashy types with the supercars, private jets and ostentatiously lavish lifestyles – they do like to spend, spend, spend. Which means that their mass exodus is having an unwelcome impact on our once brilliant capital city. Right now, London should be deep in its summer season. Throbbing with the buzz of tourists, Wimbledon finals, outdoor concerts, opera in the park, money being splashed. You don't have to look very hard to see the fallout. Let's start with Eaton Square in Belgravia – traditionally one of the preferred postcodes of the uber-rich, where a four-bedroom stuccoed townhouse could cost £25 million and a two-bedroom flat, maybe £7 million. It's always been subdued, but this week it felt completely abandoned. The streets were deserted, as were the pristine communal gardens – locked and empty on a hot, sunny day. I had never seen so many empty parking spaces in central London and the blinds were down and curtains drawn at most of the windows. The only life was provided by the odd builder, cleaner and a car valet, hard at it buffing an already shiny black Porsche. 'We come and clean cars here every week, just in case they fly back into town,' he said. 'They don't like it dusty, but they're not coming back so much now. Many houses are for sale.' It's the same scene in nearby Chester Square, once home to Baroness Thatcher. Empty and lifeless, with more than 20 luxury properties on the market – some lingering despite huge price cuts. Across in Knightsbridge's Montpelier Square – a quick pop to Harrods and round the corner from Wednesday's dreadful attack – at least nine houses are for sale. The same in Kensington where prices are down to 2014 levels. And over in Mayfair, there is plenty to buy in the multi-millionaire and billionaire bracket with some prices down as much as 26 per cent. But according to expert Jo Eccles, managing director of the property consultancy firm Eccord, just six per cent of the houses available are under offer. Because the uber-rich might have gone, but they don't need to sell – particularly not at a loss. 'They're mostly wealthy enough to be complacent about it,' she says. So they just sit empty. For weeks. Months, sometimes at a time. With just a property agent popping in every week or so to validate the insurance. Camilla Dell's company Black Brick provides this service. 'It's by far the fastest growing bit of my business,' she says. 'None of them want to go. The UK used to be a welcoming place for wealthy people to live and raise their family and work. This is no longer the case. It has definitely lost its status a bit.' Of course, all this hasn't all happened in the past few months. The exodus has been building slowly since the 2008 recession, economic uncertainty after Brexit and a gradual erosion of the protected status of non-doms in the UK under both Conservative and Labour governments. After Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, London's wealthy Russians evaporated. And the sense of unbridled crime is deeply off-putting, particular to the rich. 'Security is definitely a consideration,' says Jo Eccles. 'You need to be more streetwise than you ever had to be. So you don't wear a big watch in London. Many bring their own security.' It is tricky tracking the super-rich, because their finances are so complex and they have so many homes, and Henley & Partners' figures have attracted some criticism. But can it be a coincidence that so many restaurants closed in London this year? And that, while there are still plenty of great places, crammed and buzzing, there are also a lot of alarmingly empty dining rooms. A friend tells me that, a couple of weeks ago, he dined at Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental (where the tasting menu is £170 for five courses). For their entire sitting, theirs was the only table occupied. The same week, a single table of late lunchers were the sole diners at Langan's Brasserie in Mayfair until the early evening. And last month, a colleague was invited to lunch in the wonderfully opulent dining room at The Dorchester on Park Lane where, for 90 minutes, her party were the only diners in the restaurant. 'It was dead. That's the truth. And we had the staff coming to our table of four with desperation in their eyes,' my colleague said. It didn't help the luxurious ambience that, last month, before they were evicted and moved further up Park Lane, the migrant campers were right outside the hotel. The whole of Mayfair, once so impossibly glossy and exclusive, feels a bit forlorn. Shisha bars and glitzy cake shops have popped up. Bins are left out on the street in Berkeley Square. Beggars all over. Scott's on Mount Street – where, not so long ago, it was almost impossible to get a table – has availability every day this week. And the really posh shops there – Jimmy Choo, Balmain, Oscar de la Renta – were all empty when I visited this week. In Lanvin the doorman looks like he has not moved for hours and in the huge Bentley garage in Berkeley Square, a clutch of staff lounge on the counter chatting, untroubled by any customers. The daft thing is that Britain has spent decades courting the super-rich to stimulate its economy. They've been flocking to London since the 1970s. First the Greeks, then the Iranians, the Arabs, Nigerians, Indians – attracted like bees to the honeypot of the city's financial stability, safer lifestyle, green spaces but, most of all, our very warm financial welcome. As a result, large chunks of central London sprung up to service them. Swanky bars and restaurants. Supercar dealers. Madly over-the-top luxury accommodation, such as 60 Curzon, an uber-luxe development in Mayfair which had all manner of flats available to buy when I popped my head in this week. And One Hyde Park – barely 100 yards from where Blue Stevens was killed. Developed by the Candy brothers, it is a totally ridiculous glass craziness of flats that cost up to £200 million with amazing views of Hyde Park and amenities include everything from bulletproof glass to a 21-metre ozone pool and room service from the five-star Mandarin Oriental next door. Oh yes, and their own Rolex shop downstairs, though I'm not sure business will be booming there right now. Of course, the non-doms are not our only wealthy residents. Some experts claim that the plummeting property prices will finally reopen some markets – particularly Kensington and Knightsbridge – to domestic buyers, shifting families (albeit very wealthy ones who can weather the next round of taxes) back into the middle of town. And with the re-election of Trump, Americans are flocking over – mostly to Kensington, Notting Hill and St John's Wood. 'The Trump effect is huge,' says Jo Eccles. 'I had clients calling on the day of the election to buy in London and they keep coming.' But it seems that they're coming to a rather diminished London. A city that feels tired and tarnished, where migrants put tent villages outside five-star hotels and, where some neighbourhoods, are completely deserted. And, most worryingly, as the dreadful events of Wednesday evening outside the Nusr-Et Steakhouse proved, is also now alarmingly dangerous.
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Good Morning Britain's Kate Garraway reveals she had bailiffs turn up at her door while her late husband Derek Draper was in a coma in hospital
Kate Garraway has revealed that she once had bailiffs turn up at her door while her late husband Derek Draper was in a coma. During Friday's instalment of Good Morning Britain, the presenter, 58, opened up on the tough situation she faced while her husband was stricken in hospital with a COVID-19-related illness. Speaking to money-saving expert Martin Lewis, who is campaigning to change the way councils call in debts of unpaid council tax, she revealed: 'Martin this is extraordinary. I've experienced this you know, when Derek was in his coma. She continued: 'In the latter half of 2020, somebody came to the door, a bailiff, it was all in Derek's name and they said: "You have to pay your years council tax plus the fines because we've been chasing you with letters." Kate explained the reason for the bill going unpaid, was because her husband was responsible for paying the council tax. She said she had 'no idea' it was going unpaid - otherwise, she would have paid it. She continued: 'It was my fault, I hadn't been opening the letters in his name because my head was in another place. 'And I've experienced the speed, as what happened was six weeks between him you know finding them, because he was in a coma, he hadn't paid our council tax, to having bailiffs at the door. 'And I, of course, am in a much more fortunate position than the sort of people you're talking about.' Following the admission, Kate was seen making her way to another job - hosting her Smooth Radio show in London. It comes after MailOnline revealed earlier this week that Kate had suffered another financial blow amid her £800,000 debt battle. The presenter had been frozen out of her bank accounts after changing her phone handset and reached out to Barclays Bank on social media in a desperate plea for help on Tuesday. Kate said that she had been unable to access either her current or savings account since Friday and hadn't been able to speak to anyone in customer service. Taking to X, she wrote: '@Barclays please please get in touch with me - I have not been able to access any of my Barclays accounts current or savings since Friday due to changing my phone handset and can't get through to anyone on customer service - please dm me.' Kate's message didn't go unanswered this time and a customer service rep responded to her through the Barclays X account. They wrote: 'Could you please pop into our DM's with your full name, postcode, contact number, and we can take it from there together. 'I've popped a link on this message that will take you through to us in DM. If you do have any other questions then please do let me know as we are here 24/7 for you. Thank you!' It's the latest financial blow for Kate who has been dealing with debt following her husband Derek's death. The presenter has openly discussed how she has been left with debts between £500,000 and £800,000 after caring for her late husband. Political lobbyist Derek died at the age of 56 in January 2024 following a four-year battle with long Covid with Kate paying £16,000 a month for his care. Now, a new liquidator's report has revealed the large tax costs that are yet to be paid by Derek's now-defunct psychotherapeutic company Astra Aspera. The company, which was jointly controlled by Kate, went bust owing hundreds of thousands of pounds to creditors, including a large bill to HMRC. Filings on Companies House have revealed how Kate has been trying to pay off the debt, with HMRC now submitting a lower revised total in a small boost. HMRC's latest preferential claim stands at £288,054, which is around a third of its previous 2023 submission of £716,822, according to the documents. It is not known why HMRC dropped the payment, and the filing has claimed there are also 'insufficient funds to pay a dividend to secondary preferential creditors'. According to The Sun, Kate has so far paid back £21,000. Addressing the filing, Kate's spokesperson told MailOnline the 'shocked' TV star 'doesn't recognise these figures' and is in contact with HMRC to make sure she 'honours what is required'. Their statement read: 'Kate has met all that the liquidators of Derek's company have asked for and more over the past four years. 'She doesn't recognise these figures and is shocked that it's being presented in this way by them. 'Caring for Derek and supporting her family when Derek could no longer run his own businesses has taken a huge financial toll on her but she's determined to put things right. 'She is in constant contact with HMRC to make sure she honours what's required from Derek's now-defunct company.' Kate said that she had been unable to access either her current or savings account since Friday and hadn't been able to speak to anyone in customer service Kate's message didn't go unanswered this time and a customer service rep responded to her through the Barclays X account Derek battled long Covid for four years before his death and Kate has openly discussed the devastating financial toll of funding his care during that period. When Derek wasn't in hospital, he had to be looked after 24/7 at home by his wife and a team of carers. Derek battled long Covid for four years before his death and Kate has openly discussed the devastating financial toll of funding his care during that period. When Derek wasn't in hospital, he had to be looked after 24/7 at home by his wife and a team of carers. In January, Kate explained how she has been left with 'excessive un-payable debt' as she spoke about dealing with the funding of his care. She shared: 'The family and I have been talking about the challenges we faced this time last year, one of the overriding ones, he went back into intensive care before he passed away was dealing with the funding of care. 'At the time of his death, there were two appeals that hadn't been heard for funding. It kept being pushed back and pushed back. 'In the meantime, I'm lucky I have an incredible job which is well paid. I was having to fund the situation. 'Now I've got excessive un-payable debt because of it. If I'm in that position what else are people going to be?' In March 2024, the presenter revealed that she had been spending £16,000 a month on care for her late husband. She told Good Morning Britain: 'I am ashamed of the fact I'm in debt. I have an incredible job that I love, that's very well paid. 'I'm not a carer travelling miles, paying their own transport to go and help somebody for minimum wage.
The Independent
20-06-2025
- The Independent
Kate Garraway reveals she had bailiffs at her door while late husband Derek was in a coma in hospital
Kate Garraway has revealed she had bailiffs at her door after unknowingly not paying her council tax whilst her late husband was in hospital in a coma. The presenter opened up about the 'horrible' ordeal on Good Morning Britain on Friday (20 June), telling guest Martin Lewis that the letters were in Derek Draper 's name and she had not opened them whilst he was in hospital. Garraway said she had 'no idea' that the council tax was going unpaid for six weeks and was shocked when bailiffs appeared at her property in late 2020. She told Lewis, who is campaigning to change the way councils call in debts of unpaid council tax, that her mind was 'in another place' as she cared for her late husband who fell seriously ill with long Covid.
