Fly Tipping Dispute

A question about : Fly Tipping Dispute

Hi,

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but hopefully it is.

We moved house in March of this year, on the day we moved we left a small wooden shelf unit in the bin store, and contacted the council to arrange collection. Another resident noticed us leaving the unit, and demanded we take our rubbish with us, I explained that I had contacted the council and he left.

The area we lived in had a management company, who take care of the upkeep of communal areas including the bin stores for a yearly fee. The Management company is made up of a group of residents.

Today I recived a letter from the management company stating that a witness saw us illegally non domestice rubbish in the bin store, and enclosing an invoice for Ј80 for removal and admin fees. They are asking for payment within 14 days or they will proceed with the debt recovery procees, and have stated that if it proceeds to court then additional fees will be added to the final bill.

The management company did have my email address, so I don't know why they didn't contact me before now, I don't know where they go my new address from, I assume from the estate agents (would this be breach of DPA ? )

My questions are:

Should they have tried to contact me by email to resolve the issue before resorting to incurring costs ? (if they had let me know the council hadn't collected I would have contacted them again or gone back and picked up the shelf myself, I had no intention of leaving it for someone else to deal with)

Is a small wooden shelf unit classed as non domestic rubbish ?

Should they have just contacted the council to find out why they hadn't collected ?

We are going to contact them and ask why they didn't contact us by email, and also check that this does relate to the shelf unit as the letter doesn't say, and also ask for proof of the costs incurred, as the invoice is one that has been drawn up by the managment company and doesn't have any breakdown of the cost.

Is there anything else that we should be doing ? what is our liabilty with this ?

Any help much appricated

Thanks
Fae

Best answers:

• Did you not contact the council to ask why they had not collected it? Is it still there now?
• Because we had moved to a house 30 mins away we didn't know it hadn't been collected, but I see your point perhaps we should have checked.
  I assume as we are being invoiced for the removal that it has now gone.
  Fae
• Sounds like a load of rubish to me (no pun intended).
  I don't see how a private company can issue you with a penalty.
  I would reply in writing/email and deny any knowledge of dumping 'non-domestic' refuse. I would not add any further detail. As you say, the only thing you left was a shelf and you made arrangments for it to be collected. That's not 'non-domestic' is it?
  For all you know, someone could have dumped a load of extra rubish and this could be what they are refering to. It all seems a bit vauge to me - I don't see how court action could ever occur.
  BTW, fly tipping on private land is a civil matter.
• There are no grounds for charging such a penalty.
  It is domestic waste; if your council does a bulky waste collection then it was perfectly reasonable to leave the item there for collection (after all, where else should it have gone?)
• Thanks so much for the replies, it's made me feel a lot more confident of my ground. We have gone back to them and explained that we didn't leave any non-domestic rubbish. We will see what they respond to that.
  If it does turn out to be the shelf, then I will ask details of when it was removed, to make sure they did allow the council time to remove it, and also for proof of the cost of removal (receipt) which I'm sure will be less than Ј80, and if it's reasonable I will pay that (mostly because otherwise the cost will be passed onto the other residents in the yearly managment charge, which I feel is unfair on them) I will not pay any fine, or extra fees that they have added.
  Once again many thanks for the replies
  Fae
• our last council charged Ј15 for 5 items(any size)
• Our council charges Ј10 for 6 items or Ј5 for OAPs or anyone in receipt of benefits. The next county over get two items free and Ј5 for a further 2 items up to a maximum of 10 items at a time.
  It's not unreasonable for a council to agree to collect a single item free.
  OP have you contacted the council again? They may have a record of your request on file which will help your case against paying the fee. Ј80 is way too much as a charge for this, Ј10-Ј20 to allow for wages and travel costs to remove it would be the most I would expect.
• Hi
  No Fosterdog I haven't contacted the council, that's a good point, I'll give them a call and see if they have a record of our request.
  Thanks for the help
  Fae
• Just thought I would update this, we wrote to the management company requesting details of what rubbish they had to get rid of, and a copy of the invoice, but didn't get a reply. We contacted the, a further two times requesting this, and on the last attempt said that if we didn't hear from them by a set date we would consider the matter closed, again we didn't get a reply.
  So I'm very glad that we asked for the extra information as it does look at though they were trying it on.
  Fae