Marstons Bailiff - Sent To Previous Address?

[gandervelch1]

Hi all,

Sorry for the potentially long post but I wanted to get some advice and guidance as this is so fresh.

I had a phone call today from the new owner of a house that I vacated in November 2021 saying that a Bailiff letter had come through addressed to me requesting the sum of £573 due to an unpaid MerseyFlow bridge crossing charge (originally a £3 charge), otherwise goods would be removed on the day. She rang me to tell me that she had been ignoring these letters addressed to me as she thought it was a scam but realised today it was a real thing and had let Marsons know that I know longer lived at the address.

I had not seen any of these correspondences as it was addressed to the previous address and I have since gotten rid of the car that was on the charge. I moved out of the property in November 2021. The charge was from March 1st 2022 and I sold the car in April 2022. I had been in the process of looking to move the car on from around January 2022.

I rang Merseyflow to explain the situation and although they were helpful, they said it was essentially out of there hands. The woman suggested I send in a TE7 & TE9 form to the Traffic Enforcement Centre which I did straight away explaining the situation.

1 hour later I received a phone call from someone at Marstons to say explain that they have been trying to contact me at my previous address but hadn't been able to. They said they understood the situation and would suggest filling out the TE7 & TE9 forms (which I explained I already had done). However, she said that she couldn't stop the enforcement and I would need to pay the £573 today to them or they would come round to take possessions on my new address (I'm unsure where they got my new address from). She stated that if I didn't pay this and waited for the enforcement officers to come round, it would add another £170 to the bill for the vehicle removal.

I paid the bill and she mentioned that if the TE7 and TE9 are successful I will receive a full refund. I just wanted some advice on whether I have done the right thing? Is this in my favour with the refund? I acted pretty quickly to pay the bill because I didn't want them coming round the house and also didn't want the extra charge. I also rang the TEC to explain, they confirmed what the woman at Marstons has said but obviously as this is the first I have heard of it I'm a little confused and worried about the situations.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

[R0b]

Hi

Just to be clear, you have now paid the bailiff and your appeal is pending?

[gandervelch1]

Hi

Just to be clear, you have now paid the bailiff and your appeal is pending?

Hi, yes I paid the Bailiff when they rang and I've sent in the forms TE-7 and TE-9 to the Traffic Enforcement Centre.

[R0b]

I'm not familiar with the TEC procedures but I do know that they are subject to the Civil Procedure Rules under Part 75 - link here. It would appear that the bailiff may have been telling you a couple of fibs in order to extract that money from you.

First of all, my understanding is that bailiffs can only enforce at the address listed on the warrant so if that is your old address, that's where they have to go (unless the warrant is against a business then it could be any business premise). CPR 75.7(7) explicitly states that if there is a change of address, the local authority must make an application to the court to reissue the warrant.

The second and probably most crucial point is, once you have submitted your appeal to the TEC, all enforcement is suspended pending determination of that appeal. Practice Direction 75, paragraph 8 confirms this (note an application under paragraph 5 is your statutory declaration):

Applications to suspend a local authority warrant of control

8.1 Where –

(1) the respondent makes an application under paragraph 5; and

(2) before that application is determined, a local authority warrant of control is issued,

the local authority must suspend enforcement of the local authority warrant of control until the application for an extension order is determined.

(Rule 75.8(b) provides that, where an order is deemed to have been revoked following the filing of a statutory declaration or witness statement, any execution issued on the order will cease to have effect.)

So based on what you've described, it seems to me the bailiff had no right to come to your new address at all and continue the enforcement nor could the bailiff have applied any further charges since your appeal puts a stop to that until the outcome is determined. Unfortunately, this is what bailiffs like to do in order to put the frighteners on people by saying they're going to do XYZ when either they know they can't do that and are deliberately lying order to get the outcome they wish for because it works so well and the majority of people just won't take any further action after the fact.

Moral of the story, bailiffs will say anything to get you to hand over money. Whilst there might be some truth to what they say, a lot of the time they do not follow the rule book so yu have to take what they tell you with a pinch of salt.

If you wanted to hand over the money, I suppose you could apply to court and get an injunction to hand over the money but you will probably be throwing good money after bad since by the time that court decision is made, you would probably have had a ruling on your TEC appeal. Outside of that, I suppose you could make a complaint against the bailiff but history suggests not much is done.