Do you want to see bailiffs regulated? Read on...

[Recycler]

Why does the Government resist regulating bailiffs? Why has it been reviewing them continually since 1992 but is still putting off regulation?

The simple reason is that Government has the most to lose. Central and local Government is the biggest user of bailiffs and wants them to collect as much as possible of the parking penalties, council tax, business rates, magistrates’ fines and all the other money that it’s owed.

Whenever you hear complaints about bailiffs, remember this. Almost certainly, the bailiffs are Government contractors following Government regulations to collect Government debt.

The Government wants a free enforcement service: this means that bailiffs must collect from the debtors who pay enough to pay for enforcement action against debtors who don't or can't pay. This is the main cause of the criticisms people have of bailiffs.

The reason we need a bailiff regulator is because central and local Government fails to manage its own contractors properly.

In 1992, the then Lord Chancellor started to review bailiffs because of concerns about how some of them enforced the poll tax for local authorities. That review finally ran into the sand in 1999, when the new Labour Government just tinkered with the way bailiffs get their certificates. This didn’t achieve much and the problems continued.

In 1998 (before the previous review was completed), the Government launched another review, one intended to make enforcement law tougher. Everyone agreed there should be a specialist regulator to oversee bailiffs but by the time the Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Bill was published in July 2006, all that was proposed was further tinkering with the way that bailiffs get their certificates.

As the Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Bill has gone through the House of Lords, the Government has continually resisted including proper regulation of bailiffs. Its latest tactic is to deflect criticism by publishing another consultation paper. This new consultation will close in April and the findings published in the Summer - long after the Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Bill has become law.

It is clear from the new consultation paper that the Government doesn’t want a bailiff regulator to do much more than issues licences to individual bailiffs. It doesn’t want the regulator to oversee training or qualifications. Most alarming, it doesn’t want the regulator to investigate complaints because (it says) this would undermine our Human Rights! (This is typical of the way the Government has resisted sensible argument with nonsense, almost as if it is deliberately insulting our intelligence. If this were correct, it would mean, for example, that the new Solicitors Regulation Authority is wrong to investigate complaints about solicitors and that the Scottish Parliament has just wasted its time passing an Act that sets up a new enforcement 'commission' than can hear complaints!) You can read the consultation paper on the internet at: Department for Constitutional Affairs - Publications - Consultation papers - Regulation of Enforcement Agents .

In the House of Lords on 31 January, the Minister responsible said that if the responses to the new consultation are what the Government wants to hear, it will begin to make the changes in the Summer. She didn’t add that if the responses support proper bailiff regulation, we might have to wait many more years for another Bill to make it happen!

I have been a member of the Enforcement Law Reform Group since it was founded in 1999 and became its chair in 2002. All along we have realised that bailiffs, debt advisers and everyone else with a legitimate interest in bailiff law wants to see a proper bailiff regulator created. The only reluctance has been from Government.

What do I mean by a ‘proper’ regulator? One that is independent of both the bailiffs it regulates and the creditors that instruct them: that means it must be as independent as possible of Government! A regulator should:

• licence bailiffs
• approve the businesses and organisations that employ them
• accredit the professional bodies that represent them
• set standards of conduct
• monitor performance
• investigate complaints
• punish failure to comply with law or professional standards and order redress where appropriate.

Lord Lucas is a backbench Conservative peer who has been trying to have bailiffs regulated. He has tabled an amendment to the Bill that will require Government to get on with regulation within a year. The amendment should appear on Parliament's website in the next few days.

Please express your support for Lord Lucas’ amendment before the House of Lords considers it on 20 February. You can do this by writing to Lord Lucas and copying your letter to the Minister. The more people who support the amendment, the more likely the Government is to take notice. Their addresses are:

Lord Lucas
The Lord Lucas of Crudwell & Dingwall
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW

or e-mail: LUCASR@parliament.uk

The Minister
The Baroness Ashton of Upholland
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Selborne House
54 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6QW

or e-mail this official at DCA: AnneMarie.Goddard@HMCOURT S-SERVICE.GSI.GOV.UK

Keep your letter or e-mail short. You could say something like this:

Dear Lord Lucas

I am writing to support your amendment to the Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Bill that would require the Government to produce proposals for a specialist bailiff regulator within a year. I think the proposals in the new consultation paper issued in January 2007 by the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs are completely inadequate.

The Government should create a regulator that will:

• • licence bailiffs
  • approve the businesses and organisations that employ them
  • accredit the professional bodies that represent them
  • set standards of conduct
  • monitor performance
  • investigate complaints
  • punish failure to comply with law or professional standards and order redress where appropriate.

I have sent a copy of this to the Minister, Baroness Ashton.

Yours sincerely….

This is not a party political issue, so please write to Lord Lucas whether or not you are a Tory supporter. But if you are a Conservative or LibDem supporter, please also send a copy of your letter or e-mail to their spokesperson in the Lords who is dealing with this Bill.

They are:
Conservative Party
The Right Honourable The Lord Kingsland QC TD DL
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW

or e-mail: Kingslandc@parliament.uk Liberal Democratic Party
The Lord Thomas of Gresford QC
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW

or e-mail: Thomasm@parliament.uk

Finally, persuade others to do the same. Please circulate this message.

If you would like to do more, please contact me and I can give you some suggestions. If you want me to keep you posted on developments, just send me an e-mail (see below).

It’s never easy to persuade Government to change its mind but if we believe democracy is a good thing, we should try. The Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Bill is the first and last opportunity for a generation to get bailiffs properly regulated. Don't let the Government waste it.

Philip Evans

pip@moneyabuse.org (e-mail)

020 8319 8888 (tel)

8 February 2007

Philip Evans is a former civil servant who, in his last years at the Lord Chancellor’s Department, was involved with bailiff law and policy. Since he resigned in 1997, he has worked with the professional bodies representing bailiffs in the UK and in 2002 he was elected to chair the Enforcement Law Reform Group.

The ELRG website is elrg.org.uk .

Philip now earns a living teaching personal finance to teenagers. His website is An holistic approach to personal finance .

[i_spam]

Hi
nothing will be done now bu ones everybdy realises and kicks a stink up it will be to late.

[peterbard]

Hi
Yes i wa s sent this from Lord lucas.
I did not however agree to back this particular option. this is the reply i sent and his reply to me.

Dear Philip

Thank you for your e-mail I found it very interesting and informative and agree with most of what is said.
I have been at the forefront of bailiff action on many occasions working for various voluntarry services in the Greater Manchester area and have had may experiances of the way that bailiffs ignore the current legislation. What wories a lot of us is what is going to happen when they are given additional powers to enter properties using force and restrain debtors.
Many of us would welcome the introduction of additional safeguards on baliff actions but unfortunately experience has shown that untill know any legistaion designed to regulate their actions are ignored, the record of prossecution for bailiffs exceeding their powers illustrates this, therefore we feel that the first and most important matter on the agenda is to prevent the bailiffs having the lawfull right to use force on civil warrents. I will however read the ammendments to be tabled by Lord Lucas and consider what has been said
Yours
Peter.Bardsley

Dear Peter

I agree with you entirely. I think the powers of entry are both confusing and misguided. Although the Minister has said more than once that they restate the present position, and although she is wrong, what's needed is no forced entry to domestic premises under any circumstances without a prior court hearing and a court order. This is the only way to protect the poor and vulnerable - and yet make sure the affluent don't hide provisions designed to protect the poor. But that argument has been exhausted in the Lords and must be resumed in the House of Commons.

Another severe flaw in the Bill is the ways that bailiffs are to take control of goods. To avoid removing goods, a bailiff must either have a controlled goods agreement with the debtor or secure goods on the premises. To insist the agreement is with the debtor is too restrictive: the Minister almost agrees and says that it doesn't necessarily have to be with the debtor - but that's what the Bill says and she won't amend it. To say that goods must be secured on the premises suggests some physical security that must surely harm a family's welfare. Both Professor Beatson's report and the White Paper say the goods can be secured by locking them in a room - but just what room should a bailiff commandeer? A bedroom, perhaps? But, again, we exhausted the arguments in the Lords and must return to the fight in the Commons.

I am also worried about the use of force against people and am entirely un-satisfied by the Minister saying she won't implement it if its not wanted. It was helpful when she said in Parliament that the power is wanted by High Court Enforcement Officers because now we can say how ridiculous that is. HCEOs already have a power of arrest - they, of all bailiffs, don't need a power to restrain! And we really see how foolish the power is when we compare it with the HCEO's arrest power. Having restrained a debtor, what does the bailiff do with him? The bailiff cannot detain the debtor or arrest him. So what can we expect a debtor to do immediately he is released but to resume obstructing the bailiff. That can only lead to violence! This argument has also been lost in the Lords but I do sense enough dismay that we may be able to resurrect it at the Third Reading.

But returning to the issue of regulation, whatever law is enacted -no matter how good it might be - streetwise bailiffs will run rings around it. That's why we need regulation. I think we have no hope of halting the Bill's progress in the Lord's to get proper regulation inserted into the Bill but Lord Lucas's amendment keeps the argument alive and I hope that enough backbench Labour MPs will act to keep it in while we lobby for something better.

Finally, I should say that regulation is essential to tackle fee abuse. Again, no matter how tightly drawn the new fee structures are, bailiffs will find ways to exploit them. It will be no good telling abused debtors to start legal action because that will be beyond most of them. I've worked with bailiffs since I was a manager in a county court in the 1980s and, since the poll tax, I have watched how malpractice has become part of the culture. The Government has wanted a free service for too long and even the most honest bailiffs have had to take a liberal attitude to the fee scales. The poison is in the blood and it will take a generation to purge - and then, only with a proactive regulator

If you are unable to support Lord Lucas, I of course understand. But I hope his amendment is drawn clearly and widely enough that those who support regulation can express their support for this. I know it falls short of what we all want, but it help us take the fight to the House of Commons.

With apologies for another long e-mail - and my best wishes,

Philip

I am still strongly of the opinion that the only way to stop this happening is to ensure the Bailliffs are not given the power in the first place then there would be no reason for additional regulation which probably won't work anyway. I have been present in situations where bailiffs have flauted the legal perrogative and then given the debtor a piece of paper saying this is the address if you want to complain,not much use it is the debtors word against theirs and the damage has been done.

Peter

[i_spam]

I have started a mass complaint thread here add the name of the bailiff etc here !!

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...-bailiffs.html