OK quick one before I pop home.

Mrs who works from home has had the Bailiffs knocking at our door. They are chasing a debt from a someone who rented the property before we bought and moved in two years ago.

Not sure at the moment if its a County Court bailiff or one instructed by a creditor.

Anyway, she proved who she was (photo driving licence & utility bill).

But they seem to think unless we can provide a forwarding address, the bill & Bailiffs will keep knocking!

I thought County Court bailiff had different powers of access?

Can we tell them to just do one?

the debt is with the person not the address.

tell them to poke it.

Any baliff can only have access if its county court judgement, if they keep knocking call the cops, its harassment. Tell then there is a man here demanding money and threatening you, and you are scared.

I had similar and was just told to write saying I was the current resident – can't remember what proof was involved – maybe a utility bill?

Never heard from them again.

Annoyingly before it went to the bailiffs it was a council sending letters and there was no way to stop them – not sure if they had to pay the bailiffs for wasting their time.

I had one call into my business premises after another company. He was a courts enforcement officer.
He was finally satisfied that we weren't who he was after and went on his way.
Had people threaten me recently as well because of the old business. All sorted out now though.

I thought that County Court bailiff had different access rights, but not sure as to what these are?

Even so, the debit has nothing to do with us and we have no forwarding address for the person they are after.

I think you'll find if its the county court baliff their behaviour is a little better than yer average bailiff.

I'm sure that if they cross the threshold they can then legally remove stuff, so don't open the door…?

Takes me back to a house I bought about 12yrs ago. Was a hammering on the door at 11pm one night. Opened to find two of the biggest blokes I've ever seen. Both in black suits, & a big Merc with its engine running. Turns out they were after the chap who'd left previously, owing thousands as I later found out. They knew what he looked like anyway, & bid me a good night after I'd explained. I then changed my pants. 🙂
You see it on TV etc, but trust me, you would not have fecked with these chaps.

CAB advised me not to open the door if bailiffs come knocking. Once you have let them in (and I got the impression that opening the door counts) they have rights to remove goods. They're a little like vampires. If it's court appointed it's a different story but get them to show ID through window or push through door.

My understanding is similar to 1961Bikie above – bailiffs have to be 'invited' in, but an invite may include opening the door to them, or leaving a window open. They can't force an entry (e.g. by forcing a window open, or by barging past / through you if you're physically blocking the way, but if there's a route open then they can use it).

You've told them who you are and provided proof.

toys19 – Member

Any baliff can only have access if its county court judgement, if they keep knocking call the cops, its harassment. Tell then there is a man here demanding money and threatening you, and you are scared.

+1

If you can photograph him/them and/or get the car numberplate so much the better.

Opening a door is not an invitation for them to come in! they just use the foot in the door tosh!

I had the previous owner of my house leave, then we had the Customs & Excise, Police, baliffs, Investigators all nocking, I told them 100 times he left, that carried on for 3 years, I finally started saying to them Get off my property, even to customs, Big burly debt collectors and Investigators, they were harrasing me for information I did not have, I said I would sue them if they carried on.. or remove them from my property by any means, never heard anything since. Since found out the old owner had over £200,000 of debt and lots of bad dealings. My tip, he helpful but if they persist, remove them from your propery and threaten to sue!

And input from a person who deals with Bailifs on a daily basis.
Do not open the door or window. A bailif has the right to peaceful access. If the door or window is open, they can just waltz, step or climb right in.
Once the bailif has had access once (given or obtained as above) they have free access whenever they please between 8:00am and 7:00pm but not on Sundays' thank you very much unless they get specific permission which is very rare.
Showing the bailif that you are not the person AND the person they are recovering from are not connected to your property (and that means itmes of value as well as the actual house) should put a hold on things.
They HAVE to tell you exactly who has instructed them and give you FULL contact details so that you can make contact. If yu do in fact owe the money, you'll almost always find that the company will refer you back to the bailif.
The bailif CAN NOT remove goods at the first point of contact. They may very well price up your items and then serve distress on them which means the bailif owns the items distressed but will let you keep hold of them for as long as you are servicing the debt (ie keeping to a very severe repayment plan) until the debt is paid in full and then the distress ceases.
A bailif is able to call three times at the property before he has to call it a day if he is unsuccesful (retuning the debt Nulla Bona) to the issuing company but they will likely send it to another company and the three goes starts again.
If he calls to the property and nobody (whether related or not_ is over 18, he cannot issue distress and entry at that time although probably taken to see if anybody is over 18 is in the house, does not count as entry invited (he canot just walts in at a later date because his initial entry is invalid).
Finally, County Court bailifs are normally very helpful but private bailifs are nearly always pitbulls. County Court bailifs are salaried, most private bailifs are commisioned.

Opening a door is not an invitation for them to come in! they just use the foot in the door tosh!

Sorry – that is wholly incorrect. See above. I do two jobs in my working week. One for a council tax recovery dept. so I send bailifs out and the other for a charity that on occasion "protects" people from bailifs (for the want of a better word).
To one group if asked, I'm very economical with the law (but I don't tell lies) and to the other group I very definitley hand out some urgent instruction about getting the windows and doors shut etc. Last week if was organising a child minder under 18 so that the lady could leave the house to go and get some groceries.

Bailiffs have walk in possesion of your goods its then up to you to prove they are yours, keep the curtains and all doors locked shut, if and when they do call again ,ask who they are collecting the debt for,take their picture as above,and reg number of the car.

Phoner the compant they are chaseing the debt for and explain whats happening,keep a record of time and person you spoke to,be firm but polite.

Call the police if threatened,999.

Also if you do owe the debt they wil get a court warrant and make forceable entry, they did for a neighbour, but she had done a flit.

Good luck.

Citizens Advice have the following which may be useful:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/d_bailiffs.pdf

Can I ask a question bailif related .

How do we stand if the bailifs come round about dept my 22 year old daughter has run up . she live here but owns nothing but her clothes so can they distress any of my stuff.

also if she gets a CCJ does that have any bearing on me and the wifes credit rating .

no but you'll have a job convinving them that your stuff is not her stuff.
It will only have an effect on your credit rating(s) if either of you have purchased something jointly on credit or have previously stood as guarantor for her. It's all about financial association. Living at the same property does not laone cause financial association The debt is based on the person, not the property.
I have just been dealig with a family where the daughter is getting a mortgage for a house where the family have been repossesed (mother an drunk /violent father mortgage)

A word of advice about CAB. They are mostly staffed by volunteers. Lovely people I'm sure but when they phone me at the council for advice as to what to tell their customers when they have bailifs at the door chasing unpaid council tax…I'm hardly going to make one of my jobs harder.

Thanks Barca2

we had a balif round and I told him to take her to court I have bailed her out too many times and a ccj may just stop the kin idiots lending her money .

he said it would look bad on us as the ccj would be against the address

Happy to help Trout. Thwe debt should have already been to court if he was a bailif. I suspect he was probably a debt collector.
As above, if you don't have a financial connection with your daughter, it won't have any effect on you or your wife.
Order a credit file from Experian, Call Credit and Equifax (£2 each per person from each company) as the data held by each can be slighty different and then if a financial association is on there, you can see why and if it's an assumed financial association (incorrectly held association) you can write to the company that has created the association and have it corrected although this in itself could be anything in between easy and a nightmare.

Can bailiffs enter a property by climbing over a locked 5ft high wrought iron gate ? Reason I ask is that my ex had several visits chasing a debt from a lad (son of former house owners) who we had bought the house from 10 years previously! I was under the impression that they had to get permission to enter a property and that climbing over a locked gate constituted illegal entry.

Seems to be sorted out now but it gave her a fright seeing 2 big blokes peering through the kitchen window one afternoon.

If I open the door to someone, but don't move, i.e. block access past me into the house – is it assault if they forcibly move me (even a shove?). Seems that a balif could easily gain access if they just knock on the door and you're not expecting them…

They certainly can and will climb over walls and gates if they're determined enough.
Technically ex-pat, they need to gain peaceful entry to your property. I dare say that some are not beyond a quick shoulder barge and deny any such thing took place to get in but no, it isn't peaceful entry if they've had to force a person out of the way. This is the same reason why the point of entry has to be open to allwo them access rather then WHAM! the front door is off it's hinges and the''re in although I know the majority I deal with would much prefer the straight in method.

so in reality, I can be sat at home, the door bell rings, I go to answer, and a baliff "peacfully" barges past me and starts eying up the house contents. I'm not the person who owns the debt, indeed I'm nothing to do with it but I have NO way of stopping this person entering my house… seems a bit of an arse if you ask me..

Barca2 I take it you have loads of examples of over zelous baliffs "peacfully" dealing with people.. I might PM you if thats ok

That's pretty much the size of it Martyn. Earlier this week, a barristor no less somewhere near to Marple but not quite Derbyshire (begins with the the letter M…has a big cross with an ace mtb decent from it) had his wife's Mini Cooper clampeed and the pick up truck was on the way to haul it off. Bailifs were sent to next door but it's a shared drive. They wouldn't have a word of anything the barrister was giving them, police not interested unless punches were thrown. It had to be resolved with frantic calls to his wife in Italy, faxes to us in the office with a copy of the log book showing that the vehicle was not owned by the debtor.
Feel free to bung an email over. I can't get to it until this evening though if that's OK?

barca2

I am absolutely appalled that this can happen. Surely you have a right to protect your own property and the onus of proof should be with the bailiff rather than the other way round. If I had been in my old house and left the garage door open (which I often did), are you saying they could have just walked off with my bikes, leaving me to prove that I was the rightful owner?

What are the implications if you attempt to stop them? I would regard someone removing MY property as burglars and feel perfectly entitled to use 'reasonable force' to prevent items being 'stolen'.

Woody +1billion, this makes my blood boil…..

barca2

ta fella,

won't be tonight, I've had an idea in my professional capacity, need to run it past a few people first!

Technically (there's lots of technically's in debt recovery), before any goods can be removed, you have to sign a walking possesion order. This means the goods belong to the bailif but he will very kindly allow you to retain use of them on the condirion you maintain a payment plan if yui can agree one and then he'll very kindly donate the items you previously owned back to you. An important and often over looked aspect to this is you are NOT buying back your goods when you make payments. They ALL belong to him until you pay the final amount plus fees (currently approx £125:00 per visit, £250:00 if he brings a van to remove goods plus £125:00 on top if he brings a mate but companies prices vary).
I would be very nieve to believe that every call I get from distraught people saying the bailif has removed property but they (the debtor) have not previously signed a walking agreement (first stage of recovery). I'll invaraibly speak with the bailif and he'll invariably say "Debtor refused to sign mate so I served it as refusal to sign" which means in theory he listed goods to be owned by him, asked the person to sign the form agreeing that the goods are now his but they can stay at the property as long as the new repayment plan is maintained but in practice (I suspect) it means he didn't get peaceful entry on the first visit so had a shufty through the windows and listed stuff he could see.
In short Woody – officialy, you would have prior notice that the goods (bikes) now belong to the bailif but you can use them with his permission. In practice, it might not work quite like that although I must confess it is quite rare for goods to be taken on the first visit (unable to agree repayments at the time).
The onus would be……are you ready for this…..for YOU to prove that a) you are NOT the debtor and are not associated to the debtor – slighty different for rent arrears (anybody living at the house will have stuff owned) and b) YOU do or do not as the case may be own the items being lovingly eyed up by the big guy with pencil and clip board.
I suggest the weak of disposition don't look to far in to the dark world of private bailifs unless they really have to. It's quite scary.
I would however advise ANYBODY who has a visut from a bailif to ensure they see the bailifs licence (not ID badge – anybody can get an ID badge and check on Google, phone head office and anything else you can do to confirm they are a licensed bailif company. If they've come at 11:00pm at night as suggested above, they'll have need to have obtained specific permission form the court to do so.
Martyn – anytime at all, no worries. If you need a company to act I can make some recommendations.