|
CIVEA Official advice from local authorities and government departments will lead complainants aggrieved by bailiffs to the Civil Enforcement Association because they know your complaint gets nowhere. They collaborate together and they are not impartial to one another. Their method is to employ attrition correspondence which is designed to wear you down and eventually give up your complaint. Contrary to popular belief CIVEA is a private company and not an industry regulator. It works exclusively on the side of the bailiff company and it is a stakeholder. The free advice CIVEA provided to debtors on its website confirms it is not a neutral and impartial intermediary. It publicly endorses defrauding debtors by charging unlawful fees contrary to Local Government Ombudsman recommendations and the House of Lords has confirmed this policy is a criminal offence. A review of about a dozen CIVEA responses to complaints from disappointed debtors showed they are economical with facts of law that stand to benefit a complainant.
The only way to get a bailiff company to capitulate. - Take legal action against the CREDITOR. Check whether your complaint has grounds. Make a written account of the events leading up to the bailiff action. Collect your evidence, then, Contact me for a consultation, and you can start action straight away.
The following is taken from CIVEA's website
Wrong. 1. JBW Enforcement Ltd v City of Westminster [2009] EWHC 2697 (QB) The judge ruled - if he (the bailiff) becomes entitled to charge fees, but does not continue with the execution process, he will not recover them and he cannot sue the debtor for them. 2. There are no additional charges because there is no debt to recover and the bailiff cannot enforce payment just for his fees. The law - Paragraph 58 of Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 says when the debtor pays the sum then no further enforcement steps can be taken and guideline 31 of the Taking Control of Goods: National Standards 2014 says when enforcement action has ceased, the bailiff cannot enforce the recovery of fees, Contrast: Regulation 4(3) of the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 says the bailiff can recover the fees for each enforcement stage started - even if that stage is not completed.
Wrong. Throssell vs. Leeds City Council [1993] Even though it is a council tax bailiff case, the judge decided that the three liability orders were being executed simultaneously so only one visit fee calculation was appropriate. Also the case of Glasbrook v David & Vaux [1905] 1 KB 615 made the same conclusion the bailiff was undertaking only one task regardless of the number of warrants involved and should only attract one fee. The Local Government Ombudsman decided in a report into complaint no 11 007 684 against Blaby District Council that multiple levies amounts to maladministration, paragraphs 43 & 46 multiple fee-charging is wholly unreasonable. The law changed on April 06 introducing the Taking Control of Goods: National Standards 2014 which Paragraph 7 says Where enforcement agents have multiple warrants for a single debtor, an enforcement agent must take control of goods, and sell or dispose of these goods, on the same occasion except where it is not practical to do so
Wrong. The above is free legal advice about bailiff matters albeit wrong advice.
This 'cottage industry' of bailiff claims management would never exist if bailiffs did not take advantage of vulnerable people and profit from their misfortune to enhance their own business interests. http://www.civea.co.uk/news-7.htm
And interestingly -
Actually, there is one individual who is doing precisely that - a bailiff and still a CIVEA member - living a lavish millionaire lifestyle at the expense of families struggling to make ends meet. The same individual was caught cheating by charging bogus fees here another one here and also in an undercover ITV Expose documentary.
With a statutory fee of £24.50 (at the time) for visiting a household for unpaid council tax it is hard to see how these numbers add up. We know bailiffs are not allowed to profit from charging disbursements of taking control of goods because the law only allows "costs".
This Local Government Ombudsman's report disagrees on Paragraph 48 of Page 10 and is a further testament that CIVEA is encouraging its member companies to commit crime against debtors by charging unlawful fees for work that has not been done which also commits an offence under Section 993 of the Companies Act 2006 and/or Section 8 of the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861.
http://www.civea.co.uk/news-24.htm
Bailiff companies have been complaining about debtors withdrawing a right of implied access using a "Notice of Removed Implied Right of Access" or "NOROIRA" to stop them entering a debtors land. This CIVEA article has no legal basis and serves to discredit the law that proves the contrary and is an effort to place bailiffs in a class above the law. As usual, CIVEA advice is not supported by legislation or court authority. The landmark case of Morris v Beardmore; HL 1981 is where Lord Scarman set the legal precedent that rules a bailiff or other person having been told to leave is no longer under execution of duty and is now under a duty to withdraw from the property with all due reasonable speed, and failure to do so he is not thereafter acting in the execution of his duty and becomes a trespasser with any subsequent levy made being invalid and attracts a liability under a claim for damages. This rules was extended further, enabling a debtor to place a notice at the property by Lord Justice Donaldson QC in the case Lambert v Roberts [1981] 72 Cr App R 223 and again in a further case a year later in Knox v Anderton [1983] Crim LR 115, and yet again in R. v Leroy Roberts [2003] EWCA Crim 2753. The CIVEA advice indicates a debtors risks significant costs or defending a trespass action and advises to seek legal advice. That legal advice is wrong because a claimant cannot be ordered costs of another party in claims under £10,000 in the small colaims track. This CIVEA advice proves two things, 1. Bailiffs are upset with the use of NORIROAs and 2, This is is yet another campaign to misinform the public of the law with intent to take advantage of debtors who are less informed.
http://www.civea.co.uk/news-22.htm
This is an extension to the above article because it goes hand in hand with the effort to discredit the effectiveness of NORIROA's. If anything, this effort only exposes bailiffs to a very dangerous situation every time he approaches a debtors property. The use of an axe as a means to deal with bailiffs without showing a warrant to enter premises is never an approved method. Publishing this article, CIVEA has scored an own-goal for the bailiff companies it represents. Once a notice is displayed and a bailiff without showing a warrant to enter premises crosses the line, a person can legally use necessary force to remove the bailiff and the bailiff resisting is the one guilty of breach of the peace: This was held in the case of Green v Bartram [1830] 4 C&P 308. If the police are present, the bailiff resisting is the person that police should arrest, Foulkes v Chief Constable of Merseyside Police [1998] 3 All ER 705 Vaughan v McKenzie [1969] 1 QB 557 rules that if a debtor uses a bottle of milk and smashes it over the bailiffs head after being told to leave, the debtor is not guilty of an offence. Likewise if a bailiff has been told to leave or refuses to remove his foot out of the door and gets a good slap from the debtor, the debtor is not guilty of an offence: R. V Tucker at Hove Trial Centre Crown Court, December 2012 A debtor cannot be sued if a person enters a property uninvited and injures himself because he had no legal right to enter, Great Central Railway Co v Bates [1921] 3 KB 578 Putting that all together, the law says a debtor displaying a notice of removed implied right of access can legally use an axe on a person not acting lawfully as an enforcement agent and is refusing to leave the premises. It can also result in a claim for damages against the police force for wrongful arrest and vexatious prosecution.
CIVEA scores an own goal by trying to lobby Parliament to de-criminalise clamping on private land. With the introduction of the Section 54 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 that came into force from October 2012, it became a criminal offence to clamp a vehicle without lawful authority on private land. CIVEA attempted the last minute attempt to exclude bailiffs from committing an offence when using a wheel clamp on debtors vehicle without a controlled goods agreement. Clamping on a public road is also illegal under Regulation 17(3) of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 when the driver (not necessarily the owner) has not received a statutory Notice of Enforcement, or the vehicle does not belong to the liable person. This Parliamentary document is evidence bailiffs are NOT exempt from committing an offence for using a wheel clamp. More info It is now understood this surreptitious attempt may have exposed CIVEA as its former self (the Association of Civil Enforcement Agencies) to be responsible for the eleventh-hour amendment to Section 27 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 just before it was laid before Parliament to exclude bailiffs from criminal liability if they are caught committing burglary, breaking entry or injuring a person while executing a warrant for an unpaid court fine.
|
