High Court Enforcement Agents & their fees

[elanfan]

Happy to be educated on a couple of matters.

On the TV you see these guys stating things like: we are COMMANDED by the High Court to..

Is this actually true? Surely they are a private company that somehow obtain a contract/bid for same or pick and choose the cases they want to follow up?

How does the fee that they obviously charge for the enforcement become a part of the writ that they are Commanded to recover from a debtor. Am I right in thinking only the debt itself is part of the writ? Often you see these companies increasing their fees once they've been on site for more than a set time. How can that be enforceable? Surely they take on the risk of recovering cash and they take the risk of whether it takes one guy 10 minutes or 4 guys 4 hours.

I'd be interested to know whether a debtor can agree to pay what they owe according to the writ but then tell the bailiff company to shove their fees if they try to increase them.

I'm just interested I'm not expecting a knock on the door as I don't owe anyone a bean!

[Boosted LS1]

It's a con. Most are private companies instructed by solicitors to act for them. They add their charges onto the basic claim whilst purporting to be high court agents.

[rscott]

Boosted LS1 said:

It's a con. Most are private companies instructed by solicitors to act for them. They add their charges onto the basic claim whilst purporting to be high court agents.

Not sure that's correct. High Court Enforcement Officers (like those on Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away) may work for private companies, but are all certified by the high court under this SI -
https://www.hceoa.org.uk/images/content/documents/... - which also sets out the fees chargeable and their powers.

If they're enforcing a high court writ, then they do have the powers of peaceful entry and seizure often shown on that shoe.

[The Mad Monk]

rscott said:

Not sure that's correct. High Court Enforcement Officers (like those on Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away) may work for private companies, but are all certified by the high court under this SI -
https://www.hceoa.org.uk/images/content/documents/... - which also sets out the fees chargeable and their powers.

If they're enforcing a high court writ, then they do have the powers of peaceful entry and seizure often shown on that shoe.

The fees chargeable are set out on pages 10 and 11 of that document**. Quite hard to read.

If they can't legally charge those fees, why do they always seem to be supported by the police if they are called?

• The document is in an irritating 'book' format, even to the extent of a page turning noise as one moves through the document. Is there any way of changing the format?

[SS2.]

The Mad Monk said:

Is there any way of changing the format?

This might be better.

[Chrisgr31]

The Mad Monk said:

The fees chargeable are set out on pages 10 and 11 of that document**. Quite hard to read.

If they can't legally charge those fees, why do they always seem to be supported by the police if they are called?

• The document is in an irritating 'book' format, even to the extent of a page turning noise as one moves through the document. Is there any way of changing the format?

Try this version here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/400/conten... although there is an amendment here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/673/conten...

There are High Court Enforcement Agents and these are individuals approved by the Court to enforce debt judgements made by the courts. High Court Enforcement Group is a debt collection agency that in some cases use High Court Enforcement Agents to collect debts but in other cases are chasing money where no court action has been taken.

The rights an enforcement agent has are determined by who has instructed them as are their charges.

Any debt collection agency can use a High Court Enforcement Agent to collect a High Court debt as long as they get them named on the writ, more usually though the enforcement agent is not action for the Court but is merely an Enforcement Agent, however they are still regulated and their fees are set out on this page https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/a... as I cant find the legislation!

As I have mention the High Court Enforcement Group and they have exactly the same powers of any other debt collector, and those powers depend on the debt being collected, however the name is a stroke of marketing genius.

Edited to add more on High Court Enforcement officers here https://www.hceoa.org.uk/home

[The Mad Monk]

Can you do this document* in a different format? (I have just started a thread in The Lounge moaning about this)!

• http://www.englandrugbyfiles.com/annualreport/2016...

[SS2.]

Not easily online.

You could print the document to PDF and save it to your computer.

[elanfan]

Interesting - thanks all.

[Boosted LS1]

rscott said:

Boosted LS1 said:

It's a con. Most are private companies instructed by solicitors to act for them. They add their charges onto the basic claim whilst purporting to be high court agents.

Not sure that's correct. High Court Enforcement Officers (like those on Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away) may work for private companies, but are all certified by the high court under this SI -
https://www.hceoa.org.uk/images/content/documents/... - which also sets out the fees chargeable and their powers.

If they're enforcing a high court writ, then they do have the powers of peaceful entry and seizure often shown on that shoe.

I take your point. As stated elsewhere there are proper high court agents and the rest are 'Joe Bloggs' agents pretending to be the real deal. I've served hundreds of High Ct writs in past years and I wasn't 'official' or approved in any way by the Courts. My work came from solicitors who often sent me to the courts to collect papers. I didn't do evictions or repossessions though but I would serve the notices warning of impending doom.

[rscott]

Boosted LS1 said:

rscott said:

Boosted LS1 said:

It's a con. Most are private companies instructed by solicitors to act for them. They add their charges onto the basic claim whilst purporting to be high court agents.

Not sure that's correct. High Court Enforcement Officers (like those on Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away) may work for private companies, but are all certified by the high court under this SI -
https://www.hceoa.org.uk/images/content/documents/... - which also sets out the fees chargeable and their powers.

If they're enforcing a high court writ, then they do have the powers of peaceful entry and seizure often shown on that shoe.

I take your point. As stated elsewhere there are proper high court agents and the rest are 'Joe Bloggs' agents pretending to be the real deal. I've served hundreds of High Ct writs in past years and I wasn't 'official' or approved in any way by the Courts. My work came from solicitors who often sent me to the courts to collect papers. I didn't do evictions or repossessions though but I would serve the notices warning of impending doom.

I'm guessing the HCEOs are the next step, if there's no meaningful response to the writ you delivered.

[Chrisgr31]

Boosted LS1 said:

I've served hundreds of High Ct writs in past years and I wasn't 'official' or approved in any way by the Courts. My work came from solicitors who often sent me to the courts to collect papers.

Was that before 2004 as the rules seemed to change then?