Bailiffs clamped ire purchase car

[Shemona16]

Hello.
I had a parking fine back in January 2020 which due to corona virus and other health issues got sent to the bailiffs. I wasn't aware of it until the bailiffs came to my house in November 2020. At that point i have filled for OOT and was waiting response. Yesterday when i woke up i have found my hire purchase car clamped. After calling the bailiffs and tell him he can't clamp the hire purchase car as i dont own it, he said he can clamp it but can't remove it, and that he clamped both cars (husband's car in my name) just to inconvenience me into paying the debt in full. What option do i have to make them release the hire purchase car as i need it being heavily pregnant, in case i need to get to the hospital. I have read its illegal for them to clamp it but they wont release it. Please advice me on how to deal with them, thank you.

[ostell]

In error

[ploddertom]

Not sure where you have read it cannot be clamped but that is not correct. Have a read of here https://bailiffadviceonline.co.uk/in...-hire-purchase

[R0b]

Don't think that website you've referenced is correct at all Ploddertom.

The understanding of a hire purchase agreement has been around for a good couple of centuries. The leading authority on this is the House of Lords case of Helby v Matthews [1895] A.C. 471. Although you can pluck a number of paragraphs from that judgment each from all of the Lords who gave their decisions, I think the below quote sums it up:

The owner of a piano agreed to let it on hire, the hirer to pay a rent by monthly instalments, on the terms that the hirer might terminate the hiring by delivering up the piano to the owner, he remaining liable for all arrears of hire; also that if the hirer should punctually pay all the monthly instalments, the piano should become his sole and absolute property, and that until such full payment the piano should continue the sole property of the owner.

Obviously that decision was over 100 years ago, but the principle remains the same and in fact is now enshrined in law by virtue of the CCA 1974. Hire purchase is defined as

goods are bailed or (in Scotland) hired in return for periodical payments by the person to whom they are bailed or hired, and

(b) the property in the goods will pass to that person if the terms of the agreement are complied with and one or more of the following occurs—

(i) the exercise of an option to purchase by that person,

(ii) the doing of any other specified act by any party to the agreement,

(iii) the happening of any other specified event;

A "bailment" is well established as the owner giving up possession of its property for a period of time, but not ownership and as described above, it is called a hiring in Scotland. Sub-section (b) also makes it very clear that the property in the goods i.e. ownership passes to the debtor when one of the following conditions are met. I have no idea why that article suggests there needs to be a Court of Appeal decision because there is already a binding decision of the highest court and following Helby v Matthews but the legislation already makes this absolutely clear. There is also a string of decisions spread across the High Court and Court of Appeal that confirms/acknowledges that under a HP agreement, ownership does not transfer in any way until the debtor chooses to exercise the option to purchase.

What I would say is that the bailiff opens himself up to possible damages claim for a number of things e.g. wrongful interference with goods, trespass to goods and if the finance company catches wind of this and chooses to terminate the contract, he or she may also be liable for the remaining balance under the contract since they have causes the OP to suffer a loss by unlawful means.