Human Rights Acts as defence vs Bailiffs?

[Trixibelle154]

I have had an issue with bailiffs recently - £30 PCN not paid which has now escaled to £380 - resulting in two big fat butch bailiffs turning up at my house threatening to tow my (lease!) car away.

I am now looking at ways of defending myself against further bailiff visits and wondered what types of defence could be used.

As the Human Rights Act section 8 guarantees a citizen's rights to live quietly etc... does anyone have any experience or knowledge which would help me put together a defence against bailiffs using this Act?

[Amy]

Re: Human Rights Acts as defence vs Bailiffs?

Have you paid this PCN yet? What is the background to all this?

[exbailiff]

Re: Human Rights Acts as defence vs Bailiffs?

The Human Rights Act would cover you if you hadn't done something wrong, by this I mean that you have a Court Order against you (Distress Warrant), therefore the bailiffs have a legal right to turn up.

They would have done a DVLA and HPI check, the DVLA check may show you as the keeper, but the HPI check will show that it belongs to a finance/lease company. In my experience we never took a lease/financed car as it was too much hassle. As technically you can't take goods belonging to a third party. It had been known that even when we clamped one then we often had to go and release it (without payment).

Some finance companies were better than others, paying the charges then pasiing these on to their customer. Others paid us the fees and then repossessed the car, claiming that the customer breached the agreement.

Best advice that I can give is to pay up.....check their paperwork, as the only charges that should apply are: PCN and Court Fees, Attendance to Remove (also known as Van) Fee + VAT....if they have not clamped the vehicle then a Seizure/Clamping Fee should not be charged, but if you've giving them the runaround then they might be charging a Waiting Fee.

If you can't afford to pay all in one go then it might be worth speaking to them, explain that the car is leased so they can't seize it and offer instalments, but they might want to levy on your household goods to agree this....if it was me, I'd try and get the money together and just pay up and swallow my pride....assuming that you had no challenge to the original PCN.