Thread: Drakes Bailifs For Magistrate court fine - TV Licence

had a magistrate court fine for TV licence and sometime in Oct agreed to pay them by standing order and i completely forgot to set this up.

Today i Drakes bailiffs visited and left a removal notice when i was out that i now have to pay £450. My original fine was £225. I rang the fine department at the court service to see if i could arrange payment with them or at least pay the £225 and they refused saying i now have to deal with the bailifs. I requested a means hearing and they said its too late for that now. I am currently self employed on a income.

I then rang the bailiffs and they were just adamant that they want the full payment and that the guy is coming back on friday. He threatened he will even bring the police and a locksmith if i am not in to remove the good.

What should i do now. I simply cannot afford to pay the £450 by friday.

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Fist challenge the fee's they have added on £225.00 they are entitled to charge an addmin fee on alocation and a vistist fee, if they have not levied goods they cannot charge a levy fee, if they have not levied they cannot charge an enforcement fee typicall £150.00. Write ASAP recorded delivery asking for the case to be on hold and for a copy of the levy sheet that you signed (even if you did not) also obtain the bailiffs certificate number and ask for proof they are certificated. If the bailiff calls do not let them in, if they have been in your home before and you signed a levy sheet you will have to pay otherwise they cannot charge you that amount. kind regards inteluk

Originally Posted by s.dzimba

I requested a means hearing and they said its too late for that now. I am currently self employed on a income.

Did you do that over the phone or did you go down and fill in the form and put it in?

If you keep trying to use the phone, you'll get nowhere.
You must do everything in writing, then you have proof of what's been said.

Fines for having no TV licence wiped off - News Post Leader

Read it, you may feel a little better.

And this

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...v-license.html

And for the future:

Abolish the TV Licence [ www.tvlicensing.biz ]

OK my story continues. I rang Drakes's main office quering why the had charged me just over £200 in charges yet this is my first letter. They said apparently the other letters were send to my previous address but i told them they should take those charges since the Removal Notice is the first thing i received from Drakes . The woman then asked me to contact the bailiff (enforcement officer)

I did this and he basically said he wasnt taking those charges and he was telling me he is self employed and thats his way of making money. I queried this and also asked him why the surname he had left on the removal notice is actually different from the one i got and be bluffed it off saying that i am just dodging the fine.

I then said to him the name he left show he is not certifated - cos it was slightly different and that he should be. He said magistrate court bailiffs do not need to be certificated which i didnt agree with him and from that discussion he just seem to have gone a bit quiet when i mentioned it and just said or you are just trying to buy time.

I then checked on the net what the law is in reagrds to if he needs to be certifacated. This is what i found on one website
" Although bailiffs executing warrants for Magistrates Court fines do not have to be certificated by law, when the Department of Constitutional Affairs (now Ministry of Justice) awarded these contracts, they included within them, conditions that the bailiffs must be Certificated Bailiffs. Therefore, there is a Contractual obligation, not a legal one that they must be certificated. "

I am therefore thinking i could write to drakes tomorrow mentining that they have a contractualobligation to be certificated and also contest the fees.

I will aslo take a letter to the HMCS to explain this and that i cannot afford to pay money.

Do you think this is OK or is there anything else i need to do

Thanks Chris600k for relying to my lonely post

The quotes that you refer to concerning the matter of the bailiff's certification
and the importance of seeing the actual warrant are both taken from our companies website and are extracts from the contracts between HMCS and the relevant bailiff companies.

Due to the large number of queries that we receive relating to bailiffs being uncertificated I have written to HMCS for an explanation.

Depending on which part of the country that you are living in, the fees charged would appear to be correct. They can charge an initial letter fee of £50 and the fee rises quite considerably if a visit is undertaken,

Yes, good luck.

Your post isn't so lonely now is it

I should have mentioned earlier that if you are unable to afford to pay this debt at this moment in time, then you should be aware that the contracts between Drakes and HMCS state very clearly that if the debtor cannot pay, then a payment plan can be agreed. The maximum time scale for re-payment is set at 90 days.

If you need more details on this please do let me know.

I will most certainly keep you informed of my response as there are very serious implications here. Not least the fact that bailiffs enforcing unpaid Magistrates Court Fines have rights of entry which are not afforded to the collection of other debts. I refer of course to the right of forced entry.

Can you imagine what the media would make of this if uncertificated bailiffs were allow to come into your home ,with the agreement of the government, in particular that they would not have had to provide a shred of evidence to the court, no proof of a criminal records check etc , etc.

Originally Posted by tomtubby

I should have mentioned earlier that if you are unable to afford to pay this debt at this moment in time, then you should be aware that the contracts between Drakes and HMCS state very clearly that if the debtor cannot pay, then a payment plan can be agreed. The maximum time scale for re-payment is set at 90 days.

If you need more details on this please do let me know.

Could you supply me with those details as i have almost the same problem with drakes and when i asked about paying it off monthly he said no full amount or taking goods to the value of

Many thanks

Certainly, here it is:


The relevant clause says the following:

Clause 1.8 (In Respect of distress)

1.8
Upon contact with the defaulter, the authorised employee will seek with the following to:

Obtain full payment

If full payment cannot be obtained to effect a levy upon goods

If a specific levy is made, agree a payment plan, providing a part payment is made at the time of contact and full payment will be completed within 60 days of issue of the warrant.

1.9 If payment in full is not forthcoming after contact is established, or after non-compliance with a payment plan, the contractor will issue notice of attendance to remove goods.

1.10 The contractor shall use it’s discretion in granting time to pay and accepting part payment, subject to payment in full being completed and funds cleared and paid to the court within 60 days from the date of the first visit to the defaulter and in any event within 90 days from the date of issue of the warrant.

Hello, Back in November a TV license man came to my door and seen my tv then took my details and asked me to pay £135 for a license. I said i didn't have it and he said this was okay and then outlined the different ways in which I could pay. I completely forgot about it and i later recieved a letter in the post concerning this and to be honest ive lost it and can't remember wht it said but i think it was basically along the lines of, I had to pay the £135 or i would be taken to court and could get fined up to £1000. I didn't worry about it much then but yesterday I got a summons saying I had to go to court because of it. The thing that worries me is that i recently had to attend court for a different issue which was more serious than an unpaid tv license but still not too serious. The outcome was that i had to pay a fine of £150 and do 50 hours comm service. What I want to know is, does anyone know what would be the worst thing that could happen?