Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

With the greatest of respect HC, when such authorities on bailiff law as Kruise and Phil Evens state that this is the case, it is rather up to you to show case law to contradict their views.

There you go. See under Form 4 Myth.LINK REMOVED



I have never suggested anyone should blindly send Form 4's. The issue I make is there is no evidence to support the claims that a court had made a costs order against a form 4 complainants, let alone one for more than £10,000. It is complete nonsense.

My requests for copies of judgments have been met with the most ridiculous and lame excuses, and no such case could be found on court records.

I have appealed to anyone with form 4 costs Judgement to come forward, and I can present a copy of the Judgement to counsel for comment and update the website.

I think the authors you mention are receiving their advice from a certain private company, because they are otherwise silent on their source of information. The company's motives are rather obvious in their efforts to discourage disappointed debtors Form 4'ing a bailiff, even if the complaint is legitimate.

Until some evidence is produced to these £10,000+ judgments, I really dont think this matter can be debated any further. You dont need to be a lawyer to realise it is impossible for a barrister to charge £10,000+ for an hours advocating in the Supreme Court, let alone advocating at a local county court. In any event, a Form 4 hearing rarely lasts more than 30 minutes.

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

On the contrary i think it must be debated further

this in particular

"While the law does give the court a discretion to order a complainant to pay costs under Section 51 of the Supreme Courts Act 1981, the Ministry of Justice revealed in a Freedom of Information Act request (February 2012), was unable to produce any judgments on court records that of a costs order has been made against a Form 4 complainant."


I will be checking this statement


It seems to me unlikely that whilst the option to claim costs exists, as your reference indicates that it has never been used.

D

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

If you can, please share your findings.

The section 51 was discovered when I presented CIVEA's website faq page and Bailiff Advice's comments about Form 4 costs orders to a Barrister. I appreciate she was only three years after she qualified, so I asked her to speak to a Silk, and devise, hypothetically, how a form 4 complaint could be ordered to pay costs. The Silk did reiterate that the likelihood is very slim, and in any event, a costs order for £10,000 against a complainant is not possible. This is because costs are set by court rules, and not by bailiffs or their solicitors. This is why such a judgement can so easily be overturned by an application for set aside on the grounds of procedural impropriety.

It is known that around the time CIVEA published its costs rumour, a number of bailiffs had been ordered to pay costs to from their bailiffs bonds to complainant debtors, and one had his bailiff’s certificate revoked. The rumour could be a sour-grapes response following those judgments.

I appreciate CAG's post was made by the proprietor of Bailiff Advice back in 2007, two years before CIVEA’s publication, but there is compelling evidence the forum post has been doctored by a CAG administrator.

Meanwule, if any armchair lawyers on this forum can produe a copy of a form 4 costs judgement against a complainant, this debate cannot progress further.

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies


I Was reluctant to put some of the more outlandish ideas to the authorities mentioned earlier, so i just copied your post and asked Philip Evens for comments.
Hi ,

I’m afraid that I’m at a bit of a loss as to exactly what the person who wrote that article is saying, other than that John and I are taking our line from JBW. (Incidentally, I no longer have a link with JBW, save for keeping in touch with friends there, as I’m withdrawing from bailiff activity to concentrate on my work teaching personal finance at Clubhouse.) For sure, the poster cannot have done much research! But to take what I think are the points in the order they’re made:

·If a Court handles a Form 4 complaint as intended under the Distress for Rent Rules, then the Court won’t have a copy of the ‘judgment’. I expect, however, that if a Court is asked for a judgment in a Form 4 complaint, even if it did handle the complaint as a multitrack case, I would not be at all surprised if the staff still might not know where to look for the papers, because the computer system used, and no doubt the paper filing system, are not designed to treat Form 4 complaints as cases.

·I, also, have asked for copies if Form 4 judgments from time to time and have found claimants very, very reluctant to share them with me, even when I have helped them. (One of my reasons for withdrawing from working for bailiff reform is the lack of willingness among the critics to cooperate.)

·I suppose if someone can’t find evidence of costs awards, they will think John and I are being disingenuous!

·I’ve heard of Form 4 complaints being dealt with in less than 30 minutes but of others lasting much longer but the costs cover much more than just the barrister’s time in court.

As I can offer only hearsay about what happens in Court, I think that John or Sheila Harding could respond to the post better than I, because they have been involved in many Form 4 complaints that have turned sour. But I do agree your position: that people will be misled into making complaints and end up with a nasty costs bill!

If I can help further, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Philip


Should answer some of the misconceptions.

D

[pepsie]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

if you think people are in dire circumstances etc etc why do you do it

DO YOU REALLY NEED TO ASK??????????

Pepsie

[labman]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

HC,

As you can see the thread has been heavily moderated again by site team, and rightly so.

I have nothing more to add to this. I will continue to help people on here if I can. If you post on the thread I will leave you to it as just at this moment I neither want, nor need to be arguing, debating niceties, or not-so-niceties with you or anyone else. To be honest, if I say what I really want to about you I will be banned from this site.

I would respectfully request you return to your own site where you can do things your way. I can't force you, this is an open public forum, but I can ask.

I am not conceding any defeat, but I have HUGE respect for our site team and LB's members. If the site team want to allow you to post on the bailiff forums, that is, of course, fine. I do not intend posting alongside you though - nothing personal, purely a HUGE difference of views.

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

HC,

As you can see the thread has been heavily moderated again by site team, and rightly so.

I have nothing more to add to this. I will continue to help people on here if I can. If you post on the thread I will leave you to it as just at this moment I neither want, nor need to be arguing, debating niceties, or not-so-niceties with you or anyone else. To be honest, if I say what I really want to about you I will be banned from this site.

I would respectfully request you return to your own site where you can do things your way. I can't force you, this is an open public forum, but I can ask.

I am not conceding any defeat, but I have HUGE respect for our site team and LB's members. If the site team want to allow you to post on the bailiff forums, that is, of course, fine. I do not intend posting alongside you though - nothing personal, purely a HUGE difference of views.

This is not suitable debate for this thread.
If you have a problem with me, then I suggest you take it in PM.

I was asked for proof and I delivered. It is fair to say that anyone who wanted to see it, was able to see it before that proof was censored by this forum.

I was critisised for helping people in "dire consequences" by someone who does completely the opposite

I am also critisised for money changing hands, im sorry if that exposed someone on this forum of being a hypodrite, but mking comments like was asking for trouble.

Labman, I suggest you drop this vendetta, even for the sake of the integrity of this forum. We can only agree to disagree on whether or not a person has received a costs order following a form 4 complaint.

Until evidence to the contrary is proved, my position is no form 4 complainant has been ordered to pay costs, let alone a costs order for £10,000. And I have published the evidence for all to see.

You should have provided your evidence to rebuke mine, it would have been settled. Instead you turn this thread into a flame war and drag other peoples names (and reputations) into it.

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

Like Labman this will be my last comment on this. As far as i am concerned there is no proof of any such assertion on your website or anywhere else.

The reason for the poor availability of documentary evidence to the widely held beliefs held by the knowledgeable contributory has been explained, at least to my satisfaction.

D

D

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

Like Labman this will be my last comment on this. As far as i am concerned there is no proof of any such assertion on your website or anywhere else.

D

D

Read the post, its not my assertion. I just gathered the facts.

You mentioned in a, now deleted post you were gong to research this point. I would grateful if you would share your findings.

Meanwhile, I'll get onto JBW Enforcments Ltd and ask for a copy of their Form 4 costs order. If they let me have it , it will be on DWB and I'll ask Counsel to draft a template set aside application. If my request is refused, I'll publish it.

[bluebottle]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

Update: The list of OFT-licensed and non OFT-licensed bailiff companies is progressing slowly, but surely. It is an interesting project as I am finding bailiff companies that don't usually appear on the Legal Beagles forums. Once I have all the data together, I will post up the list as a PDF file that can be downloaded onto LB members' hard drives for quick and easy reference.

[labman]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

BB - e-mail it to me and I'll post it up as a Sticky. Would it help you to have a list of all bailiff companies (some are one man bands)?

[bluebottle]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

BB - e-mail it to me and I'll post it up as a Sticky. Would it help you to have a list of all bailiff companies (some are one man bands)?

I'll certainly do that, Labman. And, yes please, I would appreciate a list of bailiff companies. It will help provide a more comprehensive list which LB members can refer to as and when necessary. If, say, a company has its CCA licence revoked or renewal refused, the list can be amended as necessary. Thank you for your kind offer.

On checking the MoJ's website this evening, on Leaflet EX345, they are warning about costs involved in Form 4 Complaint hearings. I have to agree with the comment by John Kruse you have posted earlier in this thread about Form 4 being overused as a means of dealing with bailiff misconduct. Other means of addressing such misconduct need to be found that is not going to further compromise a debtor's position. I'm attaching a copy of leaflet EX345.

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

John Kruse's position on Form 4 and the risk of costs has never been doubted: That is because John Kruse correctly researched Section 51 of the Supreme Courts Act 1981.

But a certain poster on the CAG forum has been saying costs orders have been made against form 4 complainants. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...icated-Bailiff

I could find no evidence of any case, and recently, someone said a costs order of more than £10,000 was made. We all know that is not possible because of court rules on limits for work done by advocates.

There is no evidence any Form 4 case was transferred to the multi-track as asserted in davyd' post (copied below and highlighted) because the order would appear in the register of county court judgements. There are plenty of judgements against bailiff companies, but none appear to be for costs alone. (unless the order has since been set aside on procedural impropriety, and removed from the Register.

I Was reluctant to put some of the more outlandish ideas to the authorities mentioned earlier, so i just copied your post and asked Philip Evens for comments.
Hi ,

I’m afraid that I’m at a bit of a loss as to exactly what the person who wrote that article is saying, other than that John and I are taking our line from JBW. (Incidentally, I no longer have a link with JBW, save for keeping in touch with friends there, as I’m withdrawing from bailiff activity to concentrate on my work teaching personal finance at Clubhouse.) For sure, the poster cannot have done much research! But to take what I think are the points in the order they’re made:

·If a Court handles a Form 4 complaint as intended under the Distress for Rent Rules, then the Court won’t have a copy of the ‘judgment’. I expect, however, that if a Court is asked for a judgment in a Form 4 complaint, even if it did handle the complaint as a multitrack case, I would not be at all surprised if the staff still might not know where to look for the papers, because the computer system used, and no doubt the paper filing system, are not designed to treat Form 4 complaints as cases.

·I, also, have asked for copies if Form 4 judgments from time to time and have found claimants very, very reluctant to share them with me, even when I have helped them. (One of my reasons for withdrawing from working for bailiff reform is the lack of willingness among the critics to cooperate.)

·I suppose if someone can’t find evidence of costs awards, they will think John and I are being disingenuous!

·I’ve heard of Form 4 complaints being dealt with in less than 30 minutes but of others lasting much longer but the costs cover much more than just the barrister’s time in court.

As I can offer only hearsay about what happens in Court, I think that John or Sheila Harding could respond to the post better than I, because they have been involved in many Form 4 complaints that have turned sour. But I do agree your position: that people will be misled into making complaints and end up with a nasty costs bill!

If I can help further, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Philip


Should answer some of the misconceptions.

D

[bizzybob]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

"But a certain poster on the CAG forum has been saying costs orders have been made against form 4 complainants. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...icated-Bailiff"

That poster runs a commercial business advising on bailiff matters, so I would be surprised if they were giving out incorrect information.

[Guest]

Re: Complaints About Bailiffs and Bailiff Companies

John Kruse's position on Form 4 and the risk of costs has never been doubted: That is because John Kruse correctly researched Section 51 of the Supreme Courts Act 1981.

But a certain poster on the CAG forum has been saying costs orders have been made against form 4 complainants. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...icated-Bailiff

I could find no evidence of any case, and recently, someone said a costs order of more than £10,000 was made. We all know that is not possible because of court rules on limits for work done by advocates.

There is no evidence any Form 4 case was transferred to the multi-track as asserted in davyd' post (copied below and highlighted) because the order would appear in the register of county court judgements. There are plenty of judgements against bailiff companies, but none appear to be for costs alone. (unless the order has since been set aside on procedural impropriety, and removed from the Register.

Just caught this, i didn't want to comment any further on this but i must correct the poster, the letter is not from me it is from Philip Evens, parliamentary spokesman , former chair of the law reform group and accredited expert on bailiff law.
Now i do not know about anyone else but when you have him John Kruise and every other authoritive source telling you that form four complaints can result in severe costs repercussions then i believe it.

D