To wonder are all bailiffs such awful people

[Charliefarlie1192]

Or just the one i had the misfortune to encounter today? He swore at me called me stupid and threatened me. I called he office and they refused to do anything just asked for my complaint in writing. It is bailiffs like him surely that give them their reputation. He didnt even let me finish a sentence. I vomited and was very shaken up by the whole thing

Thats just it though coola, i bet they filled you full of how people in debt just want to take the piss and avoid paying their bills, when mostly they are people who have eitehr fallen on hard times after being lured into taking credit by inscrupulous lenders - i pretty much count all credit card companies in this category.

Bailiffs don't collect credit card debt though lucyellen

And in your opinion they are all bottom feeders who shouldn't be able to sleep at night but some people have to do any job in order to pay the rent and put food on the table.

Also be careful with the advice you are giving, if a bailiff is collecting a high court or magistrates warrant, they do have power of entry with a locksmith whether you let them in or not.

Just as in every profession you get a select few people who take great joy in having a bit of power and trying to intimidate people but not everyone is like that.

Op if the company do not take your complaint seriously you can file a form 4 complaint at the county court that the bailiff was certificated at.

Tantrums, i would do any job i had to to put food on my table, apart from one and debt collector is it. Yes you are right about baillifs and if you had read my post you would have seen that I said that the baillif i dealt with was polite and helpful and even wouldn't come into my house when asked. The national debt line advises against letting bailifs into your home (clearly if they have a warrant this is different) because they are actually not allowed to just come and remove your items, they have to make a levvy first. Its all there on the website, so its not my advice, its the advice of a national debt charity. I also didn't say that credit card companies use bailifs.

My DP has said to me that i would make a good bailiff/debt collector as i am assertive but not agressive (honest!) but having been that person on the receiving end of it who doesn't know where to turn, ending up on ADs and pretty much a nervous wreck i just couldn't be part of that profession. People commit suicide over debts, can you imagine being the last person to pester a suicide for money? I coudlnt live with myself. I know its not the bailiffs fault someone is in debt and we all need to pay our bills etc but to make a living out of someone elses misfortune? Not for me, ta.

I woudlnt be a bailiff myeslf, but those who do their jobs well, fine, they have my respect. Debt collectors, vultures and scum.

I understand what you mean. I really do. But some people are obviously better able to cope with it for whatever reason.

I know it's not your advice but it is really widely advised, oh don't worry you don't have to let the bailiff in etc and people take that as read. And then try and use that with the bailiff obviously thinking they are well within their rights. My friend did this. On advice I got from a website. And felt utterly humiliated when the bailiff showed her the legislation.

I know more about bailiff law than I should ever need to know now!

That's the only reason I say be careful of advice like that, because it can backfire.
The very best place to learn all this stuff is the ministry of justice website.

I think you've been unlucky OP. Many bailiffs are perfectly nice and reasonable. If yours was agressive and verbally abusive, I'd report him in wriitng to both his company and to the police (as frightening you, if you were in fear of physical violence, is assault).

Thats interesting tantrums, as i understood it a bailiff cannot enter your house without permission unless a levy has been made, or a warrant is issued. So the general advice is not to allow them to come in as once they are in they can make note of what you have, which is making a levvi? then they can come and take it? Its all a pile of pants and i am not sure that people should be allowed to go into someones house and take their things, but then if they couldnt then the people who do want to take the piss would continue to do so.

Its a two way thing i guess, my DP is self employed, if a client didn't pay us it would send us under. So i do see the other side of it too.

tantrums

i think you will find that its you who needs to be carefull about the advice you give as you are incorrect.

in the uk a balif can only force entry for goods seziure or cash recovery if

its a commercial property with no residence attached or
they have previously been granted peacefull entry by a resident adult or
they are collecting unpaid rta or criminal fines and it is reasonable to do so or
(the above rule does not include ccj's ect just road traffic act fines and criminal action fines)
they are collecting VAT or income tax and they have the permision of the court.

they can however gain entry via a left open window or unlocked door. but using a lock smith would not be concidered as an entry without force.

but they can no longer formally seize goods they see through a window anymore.

they can also not opperate after sunset and before sunrise on a sunday/bank holiday/or any legit religious holiday of a faith you practice if it is recanised as a formal faith/christmas and easter regardless of your faith.

they also have very strict rules as to what they can take by law unless its for income tax but hmrc chooses to follow the laws appliable for other debts.and they shouldnt take goods worth more than the debt excluding any collection fees. anything belonging to a child irrispective of its value is automaticly protected as many adult owned items.

its a bit different if you live in a block of flats as some have been known to argue that a front door with in a block that does have a main entrance door is a internal door.
and they can force entry to external places like sheds ect as long as they are not joined at all on to your residence so a shed that had a roof/porch type thing that did connect it to your house they cant but if it didnt have the porch bit they can.

(the rules for eviction are a bit different)

My ex husband is a bailiff - enough said

I was told by the ministry of justice that if a bailiff is collecting a magistrates fine and have confirmed residency they can use a locksmith to enter you home if you do not allow them in.

I don't know, that's just what I was told, I was also shown the relevant legislation, I cannot remember the name of it, maybe someone else will know?

Years ago I worked in a county court. You'd hear the bailiffs having a right old laugh about going into a family's home and taking the half-cooked porridge off the cooker before re-possessing it, kids waiting at the breakfast table.

Now not all bailiffs may be bastards but this lot were.

I imagine most kind hearted sympathetic folk are not suited to the world of debt collection etc. So we're left with "harder souls" who get into that work... and add to that layers of abuse, lies, misdirections etc, you end up with fairly nasty, grumpy people.

I guess they don't let you speak as it's not relevant to what they've been directed to do, and they've heard it all before.

Best of luck sorting it all.

We had a bailiff round once due to a council tax bill from a shared house that df was living in. He was the only one left living in the country so the whole debt had been passed onto him. I was expecting the type of person op explained having only ever 'hearing' about baliffs and was pleasantly surprised. The man was nice enough explained that the tax hadnt been paid, (It was down to one of the other tennants agreed in the rent and bills split) and how as other people listed could notbe located it was down to df and if he refused house items would be taken. Set up a payment plan etc debt all sorted now. I guess you were unlucky op.

Tantrums it sounds very much like you were bullied by one of these inscrupulous bailiffs that tried to frighten you.

Its funny (funny peculiar not funny ha ha). We had council tax arrears that were being dealt with by bailiffs. When the guy knocked on my door i was mortified, i was terrified too because i'd heard the stories and imagined him pushing into my house - i was alone with my DD at the time. He was fine, we came to an initial agreement. Then out of the blue the council changed bailiffs, we got a really intimidating letter from them wanting ALL the arrears at once which of course we couldn't manage. They were vile vile vile. Anyway we ignored them, went back to the council and got them to agree to the ORIGINAL arrangement, which we had stuck to. They had to suck it up. When we were getting to the end of the arrangement we phoned them to check what the last payment would be and they told us we still owed them £200 odd pounds, we were and couldn't see what it was for. They said it was for late payments - we hadn't made any late payments. Oh and visits which they said they had made (but we were out). For one thing, the most a bailif is allowed to charge you is £24 for the first visit and £18 thereafter, when i informed them of this they changed their tune slightly and reduced the "arrears" to £150, errr no, we don't owe it. They were very aggressive, it took for me to turn the tables on them and fight them at their own game. I read up on my rights and funnily enough they can't just add random admin charges. We made official complaints to the council and kicked up such a stink that they dropped the rest of the charges. So, all clear then - then a few months later we got a letter from the council saying we still owed the money - the bailiffs had basically taken the admin charges at the time and not paid it directly to the council. I tore the poor woman dealing wiht a a new arsehole over the phone and needless to say the charges were waivered (not that we owed them in the first place). Oh and the council didn't renew their contract with that particular company.

The moral is, do not be scared of bailiffs, yes they have a certain amount of powers but they are not able to do what they like just because you are in debt doesn't mean you don't have rights. These bastards will twist things and most of us don't know the law so just assume they are correct.

OP the company asked for your complaint in writing, that isn't refusing to do anything. While its possible the bailiff was unpleasant I'd be more receptive to that possibility if you stuck to the facts.

tallwiv must have been many years ago as at least since the 80's a balif has not been alowed to seize a cooker or any other essential item of household equipment.

tantrums that is only if other criteria also apply and is dependant on what type of fine it is (not all judgements are fines) and also can not be done on a first visit. the same rules regarding reasonable hours also apply,sadly some of them will rely on others not knowing what they can and cant do

the most important bit of info anyone can be given is debt collectors are not balifs,no matter how official or threatening the debt collectors paperwork looks or how many fancy looking picture headings they have to try and make it look like they are from a court

or how bolshey they are on the phone.

they have no more rights to ask you for cash or enter your home,than a compleatly unconnected stranger on the street does,they are also bound to act with in the office of fair trading rules and have to keep any contact to a reasonable time/place/frequency/manor and cannot cause you to be harrised
you do not even have to talk to them if you dont want to and they can not compel you to give any personal information, they can ask but you dont have to tell. they cant even force you to pay a certain amount each week and providing you are being reasonable and not silly you are perfectly at liberty to tell them how much you are willing to pay them even if that sum is only £4 a week.

About five years ago some friends of ours bought a house that had previously been rented out to by a single mother with one DS. Within weeks of them moving in they started to receive letters for her which got promptly sent back to the sender. At one stage they were getting at least 5 a week.

After three months they started to get Debt Collectors calling they just wouldn't believe that she wasn't still living at the address one accused them of being her parents and covering up for her. They had 3 in one week and to say they were getting fed up with it all was an understatement. They would not or couldnt understand that they now owned the property.

My DH scanned all their purchase documents for them and also copies of their pasports and printed out the name of the vendors and their solicitors. So each time they or bailiffs turned up they shown copies of the documents but it still didn't put some of them off. In the end my DH composed a letter for them and they sent it to all the Debt Collection Agencies and Bailiffs that they had contact details for threatening to take them to court for harrassment after that it all stopped thank goodness as it got to a stage when they dreaded answering the front door.

Most of the debts appeared to be for catalogue mail order companies and she had even registered things in the name of her DS and the dog. The tenant was suppose to be a relation of the vendor as well.

that happens a lot, a good way to solve it is write to the credit ref places and ask them to update records.

The court bailiff who came to remove my tenant from hell was a very nice polite chap - obviously he would be to me, but I eavesdropped on his conversations with the tenant and he was perfectly polite then too. Despite the effing and blinding he was getting in return.

not citrus, im certain that the vast majority of actual proper balifs are polite and decent to everybody they come into contact with via work.

In my experience, baillifs are nasty. Certainly the company used by my local council is very very nasty. And it gets very very hard to pay when the bailiff's fraudulent charges amount to an extra 50% on top of what you owe. And councils don't allow arrangement of a payment plan. They throw you straight to the dogs.

The bailiffs we delt with over our council debt made up all sorts of charges amounting to £600. The local council didn't give a shit about the fact that their bailiff was acting outside the law. We had to do a lot of research to find out exactly what bailiffs are allowed to do.

And as for 'sort your debts out' well that can get difficult when the commute to work costs nearly as much as your rent, meaning that there just isn't enough money to pay all the expenses every month.

We had a protracted battle with the council, because they just took everything the bailiff said at face value. They tried to claim we had signed a possession order on a car. We don't own a car. They couldn't provide the signed paperwork as proof of this (strangely enough). They charged numerous attendance fees for visits that had never happened

And before anyone has a go at us about missing 2 council tax payment - we didn't actually miss them, just that when DP set up the payment on the website he accidentally typed the date wrong, so two payments in a row were late and then that was it - bailliffs on our door for the full year's council tax.

queen they are very unlikly to use actual balifs loads of la's use debt collection companies.

When I was 12, bailiffs turned up at my family home. I can't remember what it was my dad hadn't paid, but the arseholes that turned up arrived at the same time I got home from school (lived round the corner so walked the 100 or so yards alone). When asked, I told them I didn't have a key (true story), they refused to wait 20 minutes for my mum to get home and broke in while I stood there crying.

So yeah, some of them are utter wankers who should be locked up themselves. Some of them aren't.

thats crappy tidy, and shame on them. these days that would be against the law and sanctions would happen to them.

Sock, the U.K does not have balliffs , surely it is just an English thing? There are certainly no balliffs here in N.I nor do I think there are any in Scotland.

Thanks Sock. Though I'm fairly certain it was against the law then as well. And it still goes on now, which is the thing that really sucks.

There will be bailiffs everywhere, just going by another name possibly.