Bailiffs Are Loitering Outside Your Property or Repeatedly Sending Nuisance Text Messages

If you refuse to let bailiffs into your home, they may start tactics to make you uncomfortable in your home including:

• Loitering in the vicinity of your property
• Sitting in their van talking on their mobile
• Sending repeated nuisance text messages to your mobile
• Continuously pressing the entry buzzer
• Pretending to be calling at neighbours' properties
• Slamming doors in the communal areas of your property
• Following you around
• Making repeated nuisance telephone calls

Any of these actions can amount to committing an offence of stalking.

Section 1 and Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 set out the offence. To get a successful conviction, you must gather evidence.

Take photographs of the bailiff and their van, video footage of the bailiff loitering or following you, and try to take a witness with you. Smartphones automatically time-stamp your photos.

You need lots of evidence to prove the bailiff's action is not one-off. A prosecutor needs evidence of stalking over a period of time before they will consider charging a suspect.

Once your evidence and witnesses are collated together, make a complaint to the police.

Make a written complaint to police.