Team effort – Unlawful "Head H" bailiff fees for the attention of MoJ

[outlawla]

As I have said very often...it is not that bailiff companies are charging fees that are illegal..but they are instead interpreting the fee scale in such a way so as to ensure a monetary gain for themselves.

 

Exactly! The fees themselves are not illegal, it's just the way they apply them which is more often than not fraudulently.

 

Although it seems requests for data have been less successful in regards attendance/van fees, significant evidence exists that these fees are also being fraudulently applied "en masse".

 

I'll post details of those sometime on this thread.

Edited June 12, 2013 by outlawla

[tomtubby]

Excellent work...

[brassnecked]

Exactly! The fees themselves are not illegal, it's just the way they apply them which is more often than not fraudulently.

 

Although it seems requests for data have been less successful in regards attendance/van fees, significant evidence exists that these fees are also being fraudulently applied "en masse".

 

I'll post details of those sometime on this thread.

Great research outlawla, and as tomtubby says, the fees themselves are not the issue per se, it is the unlawful application of them that is moot.

 

It matters not that the fee is legitimate when applied correctly, the offence of fraud is committed when the fees are applied in an unlawful manner, as in not done the work to justify them, or frontloading like Crapquita seem to do with monotonous regularity.

[Mark1960]

Councils are self regulating so are answerable to no-one.Hence their contempt that they show towards LGO recommendations.

 

They abuse Reg 34(7) when obtaining a liability order & I get the impression that they like their bailiffs to come down hard on debtors as a deterrent-In much the same way that a drug dealer does.They are happy to turn a blind eye to abuses & the two most common abuses are Heads H & C.

 

Is it really that difficult to have a standard charge for Head C & 34(7) implemented? Or to clarify Head H?

 

I think it is deliberate

[outlawla]

Councils are self regulating so are answerable to no-one.Hence their contempt that they show towards LGO recommendations.

 

They abuse Reg 34(7) when obtaining a liability order & I get the impression that they like their bailiffs to come down hard on debtors as a deterrent-In much the same way that a drug dealer does.They are happy to turn a blind eye to abuses & the two most common abuses are Heads H & C.

 

Is it really that difficult to have a standard charge for Head C & 34(7) implemented? Or to clarify Head H?

 

I think it is deliberate

 

I agree!

 

The only thing I would add is the application of charges for "attending with the view to levying distress" (visit fees) are likely to be equally abused. However, where obtaining evidence of fraudulently charged C & H fees has been possible, there are difficulties getting similar evidence in the case of phantom visits.

[brassnecked]

Short of a compliant time date stamped CCTV showing no show LOL

[outlawla]

Short of a compliant time date stamped CCTV showing no show LOL

 

Would you call that something like negative evidence?

 

On the subject of statutory visit fees, they don't necessarily need to be phantom to constitute an abuse of the scale of charges. The definition is "For making a visit to premises with a view to levying distress (where no levy is made)". So merely hand delivering a letter to prove a visit took place would equally be abusing the regulations.

[brassnecked]

Would you call that something like negative evidence?

 

On the subject of statutory visit fees, they don't necessarily need to be phantom to constitute an abuse of the scale of charges. The definition is "For making a visit to premises with a view to levying distress (where no levy is made)". So merely hand delivering a letter to prove a visit took place would equally be abusing the regulations.

 

It would be positive evidence of fraud if they claimed to have visited and at the date and time the CCTV showed nothing.

[outlawla]

We probably won't be getting data from Swindon Borough Council, neither it would appear, will we from any local authority which uses Ross and Roberts as its bailiff contractor for enforcing Ctax.

 

Perhaps though, we can interpret the following statement to have much more behind it than merely being unable to afford modern IT systems.

"

On review, we have found that another of the other bailiff companies used does not charge Header H fees, but Ross and Roberts have confirmed that they are unable to provide this data as requested as the information held re the individual type of fees charged cannot be extracted from their computer records. They have also confirmed,

they are unable to provide this data for any of their local Authority customers

.

 

[lookinforinfo]

Perhaps though, we can interpret the following statement to have much more behind it than merely being unable to afford modern IT systems.

"

On review, we have found that another of the other bailiff companies used does not charge Header H fees, but Ross and Roberts have confirmed that they are unable to provide this data as requested as the information held re the individual type of fees charged cannot be extracted from their computer records. They have also confirmed,

they are unable to provide this data for any of their local Authority customers

.

 

Interesting. But they should know whether they do or don't charge Header fees regardless of whether they can extract them from all of their records or not. Isn't there something in the Data Protection Act

that the data stored must be accurate and fit for the purpose or something like that.

I expect there are other ways of asking for data from individual councils where Ross and Roberts are involved that would give R&R more aggravation than if they just supplied the data you wanted about header fees.

[outlawla]

Relatively painless getting hold of these:

 

Cheshire West and Chester Council (Bristow & Sutor/Dukes/Jacobs)

Figure submitted:

3,547

| Goods removed: 24

Update:

 

The figure stands at 28,015 head H fees for goods removed 83 times.

 

 

Van/attendance fees

 

Also some results for the number of council tax cases sent to bailiffs incurring the attendance/van fee on the same visit that the bailiff levied.

 

North Lincolnshire Council (Rossendales)

Figure submitted:

383

| van fee:

£130

+ £70/per hour

Lincoln City Council (Rossendales)

Figure submitted:

554

| van fee: £

Mid Sussex District Council (Rossendales)

Figure submitted:

667

| van fee:

£130

+ £65/hour

 

 

Three sample local authorities for the period 2009 to date have charged the attendance fee on 1,604 occasions in respect of the same visit as a levy.

Edited June 30, 2013 by outlawla

[brassnecked]

The rip off is continuing, systemic fraud rampant

[Clunks]

Just out of curiosity, where in the regulations does it state that the Levy Fee and the Van Attendance Fee cannot be charged during the same visit?

[outlawla]

Just out of curiosity, where in the regulations does it state that the Levy Fee and the Van Attendance Fee cannot be charged during the same visit?

 

I hope someone can find a specific reference, but it's more likely to be detailed in Service Level Agreements between local authorities and their contractors.

 

The LGO has found against charging a van attendance without first levying. Some links and references to the report are on the post ¡Here!.

 

An excerpt from a FoI request puts a logical argument for why charging the two fees in respect of the same visit would be unlawful:

"

Regarding the "

van

" fee

 

From the explanations provided in regards this fee, it appears the bailiff will be adding this speculatively, as he would not have known what goods to remove if there was no levy prior to the visit.

 

The fee is intended to compensate a bailiff firm for out of pocket expenses for attending with a vehicle “

with a view to the removal of goods

". But, the bailiff (before he has levied) has no idea what (if any) goods would be available to seize, so he'd be charging speculatively.

 

As defined in the regulations, the attendance must be made “

with a view to the removal of goods

” so, without knowing what goods he could take, an enforcement agent would need to turn up with a whole spectrum of transport, say, a removal van for example, if bulky items such as furniture were to be listed on the Notice of seizure, or a breakdown recovery truck, if a vehicle was intended to be levied, or on the other extreme, he may have needed to hire a professional outfit, specialising in crystal chandelier transportation.

 

However, an investigation into these charges would reveal with almost certainty that the fee is charged more often than not where the bailiff has neither intended to take goods nor attended with sufficient transport to incur those costs.

 

The reality is these bailiffs arrive in little Noddy cars with hardly the space to fit in their sandwiches and the masses of paperwork relating to all the other debtors they will add the charge to on that day

 

Essentially the bailiff would need to be attending with a vehicle for the purpose of removing goods; the fee would only be lawful following a valid levy, where under normal circumstances, goods had been seized on a previous visit.

 

Contracts between enforcement firms and authorities would in general be breached if a bailiff were to attend with the view to levying distress, and removing goods, both on the same visit.

 

Even if conditions detailed in the Service Level Agreement allowed it; if the bailiff wanted to "

Levy & Remove Immediately

", the bailiff on his first visit would need to arrive with sufficient transport - vans etc, to remove the goods (unknown) he was intending to levy on that visit.

 

He would have no idea what goods he was going to seize. If he seized a vehicle and did not turn up in a tow-truck, he could not have attended with the view to remove goods following the levy. More importantly, the cost of the tow-truck wasn't incurred.

[Mark1960]

With regards van fees for cars,bailiffs don't bother checking with DVLA for ownership (because there is a charge for doing so).Their tactic is to give you 5 days & wait to see how loud a debtor will scream-This determines ownership in their eyes.Remember though,they don't want to take the car-A nice little £180-£200 van fee will surfice.

[outlawla]

It doesn't look like anything can be gained by collecting more of this data. The results are pretty consistent. The majority of bailiff firms see the redemption fee as a bonus whenever levying and most councils raise no objection.

 

An odd council has decided, as policy, not to charge the fee – as have one or two bailiff firms. The latest council to disclose data (both redemption fees and van/attendance), has added some interesting information in relation to both charges. South Gloucestershire Council use two different bailiff firms for council tax but state Rundle & Co do not charge header H on any case, whilst its other contractor, Bristow & Sutor, quite liberally do.

 

This looks like negligence on the part of the council if it allows one contractor to charge whilst at the same time does not question why its other bailiff firm has decided not to risk legal challenge.

 

In relation to the attendance fee, SGC has stated that "No Van fee" is charged unless a levy is already in place. As you'd expect, but goes against disclosure by other councils in the limited cases where they have supplied data.

 

 

South Gloucestershire Council (Bristow & Sutor/Rundle & Co)

Figure submitted:

942

(B&S 942) (R&Co 0) | Goods removed: 7

Update:

 

Figure stands at 28,957 head H fees for goods removed 90 times.

 

 

Van/attendance fees

 

Number of council tax cases sent to bailiffs incurring the attendance/van fee on the same visit that the bailiff levied.

 

South Gloucestershire Council (Bristow & Sutor/Rundle & Co)

Figure submitted:

0

| van fee: No set fee agreed

[brassnecked]

Thanks for a great piece of research outlawla Top Class

[outlawla]

North East Lincolnshire Council has finally released the data relating to "Head H" and "Vehicle Attendance" fees, despite it stating in two separate complaints made to the Information Commissioner that to gather, separate out and supply the relevant information would cost a combined £79,550.

 

In both complaint decision notices, FS50443807 (Head H) and FS50458338 (Van attendance), the Information Commissioner believed North East Lincolnshire Council's fantasy and upheld its decision to withhold the data on costs grounds:

"

.......

Consequently the Council provided the Commissioner with the following estimates of costs; for the requested period of time £39,775 (1591 hours)

 

Well over a year and a half after the Freedom of Information requests were submitted and subsequent complaints to the ICO and appeals to the relevant Tribunal, the data has miraculously appeared. All I can assume is North East Lincolnshire Council has finally been exposed for telling porkies to everyone, perhaps because it knew the data would present indisputable incriminating evidence of its part in abetting the bailiff contractor of fraudulent demands of its residents of at least £0.325 million.

 

NELC’s bailiff contractor, Rossendales Schedule 5 “Head H” fees data (2007-8 to date)

 

The fee, incurred a total 1,418 times with a value based on statutory minimum (£24.50) £34,741

 

 

Schedule 5 “Head C” fees data (vehicle attendance)

 

The fee, incurred a total 2,232 times at the same time as levy visit, based on £130 attendance fee agreed with council, £290,160

 

More analysis of the evidence here.... and here.....

Edited July 25, 2013 by outlawla

[hallowitch]

:whoo:very productive day met a very nice man gun loaded bullets will be fired:-)

[unclebulgaria67]

Hallowitch, you may wish to clarify your last post, that you mean nothing that is unlawful. Otherwise blue flashing lights might be seen outside your window.

[citizenB]

:mod:

[hallowitch]

Hallowitch, you may wish to clarify your last post, that you mean nothing that is unlawful. Otherwise blue flashing lights might be seen outside your window.

 

nothing unlawful no blue lights

 

I didn't want all the work outlawla had done regarding his freedom of information requests going to waste so I went see a very nice man (local councillor ) i loaded his Gun and we/he will be firing the bullet's over the next few months

[outlawla]

nothing unlawful no blue lights

 

I didn't want all the work outlawla had done regarding his freedom of information requests going to waste so I went see a very nice man (local councillor ) i loaded his Gun and we/he will be firing the bullet's over the next few months

 

That's great!

 

Would be a bonus though if at NELC there was a Cllr having the same priorities which favoured his constituent's interests over the organisation paying his expenses.

[hallowitch]

brassnecked

you IN box full cant send you a PM

[brassnecked]

brassnecked

you IN box full cant send you a PM

Box emptied