dealing with bailiff and clamping

[tomtubby]

I have a few questions if you don't mind.

 

You say that you have not received the NtO, charge cert, or any of the statutory notices from the local authority. The reason for this is normally related to a change of address or with errors with the address such as wrong house/flat number etc. Do either of htese apply in your case?

 

Given that the hand delivered letter was delivered 2 weeks ago, did you do anything about it (such as speak with the council or bailiff co to ascertain the reason why you had not received prior notices)?

 

You have filed an OTT with TEC and you need to be aware that the normal time frame to receive a response is around 6 weeks or even slightly more. You will certainly NOT get a response within a few weeks. There is a problem with OTT's and this is that many of them are REJECTED purely because the debtor fails to complete the form correctly. In your case, what reason did you give on the TE7?

 

Secondly, if you failed to provide a good enough "reason" on the TE7 your application will be REJECTED. You have a right to seek a "review" but there is a court fee of £80 to pay and you MUST apply for the review within a strict period of time and failure to do so will lead to the warrant becoming live again and this is where you will likely have a problem.

 

This is because as you had removed the clamp the NORMAL procedure with bailiff companies will be to immediately REMOVE the car when they next visit. What is even more serious is that in all cases that I come across ( and sadly we receive enquiries such as yours on an almost daily basis) the bailiff will REFUSE to accept payment by either debit or credit card and instead, insist on payment by cash only.

 

I assume that you have now hidden the vehicle. Is the vehicle worth very much and is it on finance?

[tomtubby]

I would strongly suggest that you call the Traffic Enforcement Centre and ask them to confirm the PRECISE address on the warrant of execution.

 

As the OTT has been filed then all enforcement of the warrant must CEASE until the application has been decided. Unfortunately however we have received SO MANY enquiries where despite this regulations the bailiff has returned to remove the cars in cases where the clamp was removed. This should NOT happen but I am merely stating what IS happening so you need to be careful with the car for the meantime.

 

The "reason" that you have provided on the TE7 is sadly not a good one and it is likely that your application will be rejected (although I hope not) . There is a huge misconception that the decision whether to accept or reject an OTT is with the TEC Court Officer. In fact, the local authority are asked whether THEY are willing to accept the OTT and if they say yes...then the application is automatically accepted. If the LA say....NO...then the case is referred to the Court Officer to see whether the LA are right or wrong. Nearly always, they will agree with the council.

 

Once you have filed an OTT you CANNOT provide any further information to TEC. Therefore, if you now discover that there is a problem with the address you will have to wait until the decision letter has arrived and then you may seek a "review" by way of an N244 ( by paying £80).

 

If you ever get another letter regarding a parking ticket that you have not received any notices about then it is important to act quickly and file an OTT straight way. In that way, you would avoid the car being clamped and you could continued to drive the car without the worry about the bailiff removing the car because the removal of the wheel clamp.

[tomtubby]

Sorry forgot something...

 

When you spoke to Coventry did you ask them whether they have any other PCN's on their system for you?

 

Today, we received an enquiry from a debtor whose car has been in the car pound since last October and he managed to make payment of over £1,800 ( to include a large storage bill).

 

He had driven his car out of the car pound and about a mile down the road he was stopped by an ANPR equipped vehicle belonging to ANOTHER bailiff company. The bailiff was enforcing 2 warrants and wanted £782. Naturally the poor guy couldn't pay and saw his vehicle put onto a removal truck.

 

ANPR is awful.

[tomtubby]

 

Am I correct in the understanding that a warrant of execution does not in itself permit clamping? And that it was done outside of my presence is unlawful possibly illegal under the theft act (as I have read elsewhere).

 

 

Can you post back with the advice that you have read regarding the above. Do not post to a link (assuming that you obtain the info from the internet). Instead, can you 'cut and paste" a copy of what you have read.

[tomtubby]

Will respond fully this afternoon.

[tomtubby]

dementedfeline

 

The document that you have exhibited above is one that had been released under FOI about 2 years ago. However, I would just like to tell you that according to the Traffic Enforcement Centre they NO longer use this document. Instead, there is apparently "no guidance". Personally.....I am not convinced. I sent a letter to the "powers that be" about a week ago for further info.

[tomtubby]

Dizzydodaa

 

To avoid getting your question mixed up with somebody else's can you please repost your question onto a new thread.

[tomtubby]

arrkon

 

I am so sorry but I forgot to come back to provide an answer. I will do so in the morning.

[tomtubby]

arrkon.

 

As promised, I will respond to the query that you had a few days ago regarding the removal by you of a wheel clamp and the following statement that you read on the internet:

 

"Clamping without permission from the court or regulation providing for it is an act of trespass, the detention of the vehicle until a money transfer is made is wrongful. Paragraph 14 of Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] 4 All ER 169"

 

Before responding fully viewers of this thread may be interested in the following quotes that were made recently by Justice Fergus ODonnell in a simply stunning judgment from a Canadian court in the matter of:

 

Her Majesty the Queen v Matthew Duncan

 

In brief, Justice O'Donnell had been trying a case of a Freeman on the Land supporter (Matthew Duncan). During the period of the case ending and the Judgment being typed up Justice O'Donnell had become aware of the Landmark FOTL judgment in the case of Mead v Mead that has worldwide implications. Summing up in his highly comical judgment he stated the following:

 

 

The “internet”, also known as the “world-wide web” is a bi-polar electronic Leviathan that has erupted on the world scene in the past two decades and it has its own "Jekyll and Hyde nature”

 

“For the purposes of this case, the relevance of the internet is its un-policed “garbage in /garbage out” potential and its free-market-of-ideas potential to lure in otherwise pleasant and unsuspecting folk with all manner of " absurdity and silliness” and there is a lot of "patent rubbish on the internet"

[tomtubby]

The above quotes from Justice Fergus O'Donnel are most relevant.

 

Sadly, there are a handful ( or more) websites in the UK which "advise" debtors of ways to either avoid paying a debt to a bailiff or alternatively, ways in which to seek recovery of money paid by way of legal action and such sites will "lure in unsuspecting folk with all manner of absurdity and silliness" by referring them to various "legal cases".

 

Now here is the problem:

 

Firstly, the vast majority of the :"legal cases" referred to are "unreported cases". or alternatively, the judgments are from the 1800's and impossible ( for debtors) to obtain. What this means is that the "unsuspecting" debtor will be to "relying " upon the websites "interpretation" of what the Judgement says. In endless cases it is proven that the websites (for reasons that are unknown) mislead the public into believing that a Judgment says what they claim it does.

 

Yet ANOTHER example is the "claim" that a debtor can remove a wheel clamp and will not be prosecuted and that the case of Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest will assist. Sadly, referring to the case of Vine as being of assistance is pure and utter nonsense.

 

Furthermore, referring debtors to paragraph 14 of the judgment is further proof of "absurdity and silliness". In fact, paragraphs 12 through the paragraph 14 are SOLELY in connection with ANOTHER legal case of Lloyd v Director of Public Prosecutions ( details of which will follow).

 

Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest was at ONE TIME a highly significant "landmark" case and a full description of the case can be read here and a copy of the judgment can be accessed on the right hand side of the page.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_v_London_Borough_of_Waltham_Forest

 

As mentioned above the "Vine" judgment was at one time highly significant but is much less so since the clamping of vehicles on private ground ( such as supermarket car parks, waste land and motorway service stations) by "cowboy clampers" was banned under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

 

The judgment is important for the relevance of signage in such private car parks. One further legal area where "Vine" is relevant is in rare cases of "Distress, Damage Feasant" which hopefully (if the government have any sense) will be repealed under Part 3 of the Tribunals Courts & Enforcement Act which is due to take effect on 6th April.

[tomtubby]

The following is a TRUE copy of what paragraphs 12 though to paragraph 14 of Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest REALLY say:

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2000/106.html

 

 

12. We were referred to a number of cases but particularly to two cases where the facts were similar to the present case. The first in point of time is that of Lloyd -v- Director of Public Prosecutions [1992] 1 All ER 982 a decision of the Divisional Court in an appeal by Mr Lloyd against his conviction by the magistrates' of criminal damage contrary to s. 1(1) of the Criminal Damage Act, 1971. That section reads:

 

"A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence."


 

13. The facts were that Mr Lloyd had parked his car in a private car park. There were no less than five large notices boards located at the entrance to and exit of this private car park positioned at eye-level for car drivers. All those notices warned that unauthorised vehicles would be immobilised.

 

Mr Lloyd's car was clamped. Mr Lloyd returned to find that the car had been clamped. He contacted the security firm responsible for the clamping who required payment of £25 to release Mr Lloyd's car. Mr Lloyd refused to pay.

 

Later, in the night, Mr Lloyd returned and cut the two padlocks securing the wheel clamps with a disc cutter. Mr Lloyd's defence when prosecuted was that he had a lawful excuse for damaging the padlocks, namely that a trespass was being committed to his car. Furthermore, Mr Lloyd argued that once he had returned to the car park and requested the removal of the clamp, any consent by him to the clamping of his car ceased, and even if the clamping of the car had not constituted a trespass up to that point it was a trespass thereafter.




14. A Divisional Court consisting of Nolan LJ and Judge J, as they then were, confined their decision to the criminal law. Nolan LJ said at page 992D:

 



"In my judgment, the suggestion that there was a lawful excuse for his action is wholly untenable. At the worst what he had suffered was a civil wrong. The remedy for such wrongs is available in the civil courts. That is what they are there for.

 

Self-help involving the use of force can only be contemplated where there is no reasonable alternative. Here, as in Stear -v- Scott, there was such an alternative.

 

The differences between the facts of that case and those of the present case are quite insufficient to my mind to make it distinguishable." 

Nolan LJ had earlier described Mr Lloyd's submission that once he had requested the removal of the clamp he was entitled to recover his car by force, as "a truly absurd state of affairs".

[tomtubby]

I have a PDF of Justice O' Donnell's Judgment which I will post up this afternoon.

 

Meanwhile the Mead v Mead case is very well described by a Barrister here:

 

http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2012/09/30/freemen-of-the-land-are-parasites-peddling-pseudolegal-nonsense-canadian-judge-fights-back/

 

 

I do not want to comment any further on FoTL on this thread. Stuff and nonsense for another day.

Edited January 22, 2014 by tomtubby

[tomtubby]

Mopping up from floods last night ( and now it's snowing !!) I will post back later this evening.