Bailiffs by type of debt

• Council taxLiability orders, enforcement agents and what councils can do instead.
• Parking and traffic penaltiesFrom charge certificate to warrant, and the forms that can stop it.
• Magistrates’ court finesThe one common debt where forced entry is possible.
• County court judgmentsWarrants of control and the N245 form that can suspend one.
• High Court writsWhen a judgment moves up to the High Court, and the higher fee scale.
• HMRC tax debtsHMRC’s own officers, not private bailiffs, and what they can list.

How the debts compare

On the standard scale the fees are £79, £247 and £116. On the High Court scale they are £79, £200, £520 and £550. Bailiff fees explained

What every type has in common

• A written Notice of Enforcement giving at least 14 clear days comes before any visit. Notice of Enforcement
• Visits are allowed between 6am and 9pm, on any day of the week.
• The same household items are protected. What bailiffs can and cannot take
• An agent cannot come in when the only person present is a child under 16 or a vulnerable person.
• The power to take control of goods lasts 12 months from the date of the notice, unless a broken arrangement restarts it or a court extends it.

Child maintenance arrears

The Child Maintenance Service first tries to collect arrears from earnings or from a bank account. Where that fails it can obtain a liability order, which government guidance describes as a court order recognising that a parent “did not pay a given amount of child maintenance for a given period of time”.

With a liability order in place, the guidance lists the actions the service can take, alone or together:

• asking bailiffs to negotiate a payment, or to seize and sell the paying parent’s belongings,
• registering the debt on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines,
• using an order for sale against property or assets,
• applying for the paying parent to be sent to prison, or
• applying to stop them getting or keeping a driving licence.

Child maintenance arrears cannot be included in Breathing Space.

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Business rates

Business rates are enforced in the same way as council tax, through a liability order from the magistrates’ court and enforcement agents on the standard fee scale. There are two differences that matter.

• The £1,350 protection for tools and equipment needed for work does not apply when business rates are being enforced.
• The 28-day notice extension is not available for business debts that fall outside the Breathing Space scheme.

Commercial rent

A landlord of commercial premises can instruct an enforcement agent to recover rent arrears without going to court first. The procedure is called commercial rent arrears recovery, or CRAR. It uses the same taking control of goods rules and fee scale. It is not available against a home.

Debts that are not bailiff debts yet

Credit cards, loans, overdrafts, catalogues, energy bills and private parking tickets cannot be passed to a bailiff on their own. The creditor first has to win a county court judgment, and the judgment has to go unpaid, before a warrant or writ can be issued. Letters about these debts from a collection agency carry no enforcement powers. Bailiff or debt collector: how to tell

Common questions