Review bailiff practices of seizing low value items and imposing high charges: LGO

The Local Government Ombudsman has called on local authorities to review the practice of bailiffs seizing low value items and then charging sizeable fees.

The Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin, suggested that when dealing with complaints about these cases, bailiffs and their employers should also take a wider view than simply focusing on the legality of their actions.

She made the call after issuing a report on an investigation into a case involving Slough Borough Council. Slough had instructed bailiffs to recover the debt owed by a man who had not paid his council tax for 2006/07, 2007/08, or 2008/09.

The bailiffs were unable to gain access to the man’s home, so they ‘levied’ (seized) a door mat and charged £230 for this action. The man complained to the bailiffs and the council, but was told that the fees were legal.

Dr Martin acknowledged that, where people do not pay their council tax, it is “right and proper” for councils to take enforcement action against them, including the use of bailiffs.

However, she added that “non-payment of council tax, no matter how large the sum owed or the behaviour of the debtor, is no excuse for debt recovery officers to behave unreasonably when trying to recover a debt.”

The LGO said bailiffs would not always be able to find goods of sufficient value to clear the debt and costs and that it was entirely legal to distrain on goods of a lower value and charge the statutory fees for doing this.

“It will be a matter for the judgement of the bailiff as to how reasonable the disparity between the potential value of the goods and the debt is,” she said. “In some cases it will be appropriate for the debtor to challenge the reasonableness of the bailiff’s levy in the courts; that will depend on the facts of each case. But in some cases, and this is one, the unreasonableness of the action is clearly beyond dispute and there is no need for legal action to establish this.”

The Ombudsman said: “In this case I consider that the disparity was so great that any reasonable person would have concluded that the levy on the door mat should not have been made. As the levy should not have been made the fees should not have been charged. The bailiff was also at fault in charging what appears to have been too great a sum for the attendance fee.”

The LGO concluded that the levying on such a low value item as a door mat, the charging of the fees for this, and not considering the reasonableness of this action amounted to maladministration.

However, she said no significant injustice had occurred and no financial remedy was needed given that Slough and the bailiffs had acknowledged they were wrong and were withdrawing the fees, and that the complainant had failed to pay his council tax.

Dr Martin said she was issuing her report because debt advice agencies had told her that the practice of levying low value items and charging fees for such levies was not uncommon.

The LGO’s report comes a week after campaign group Big Brother Watch published a report into what it said was “shocking” use of bailiffs by councils to recover unpaid council tax and parking fine debts. Its research suggested that more than six million cases were passed to bailiffs by 320 councils between 2007 and 2010.

However, the BBW report prompted one Local Government Lawyer reader to comment: “How do they expect the money to be recovered?”