Confessions of an Enforcement Agent: Importance of having a second pair of eyes

By Aaron Sambells, Senior Debt Recovery Specialist at Woodstock Legal Services

When evicting tenants or trying to recover rent arrears landlords have the option of instructing high court enforcement officers or the county court bailiff. When instructing a bailiff, a risk assessment form is sent to court as there is a requirement to notify the bailiff of any risks he/she may face when evicting the tenant. Consideration is also given to whether police are required at the eviction. In practice you cannot usually pre-book attendance with the police but they just advise to call them if there are any problems on the day.

It is helpful to send details about the tenant to the bailiffs/high court officers, such as a description or photograph of them. Agents are advised to keep all information in respect of the tenant on the file for easy access as this will be required for enforcement stage. If agents believe the tenant will be particularly problematic always give the solicitor a heads up so they can advise the bailiff/enforcement agent accordingly.

Aaron Sambells is a Senior Debt Recovery Specialist at Woodstock Legal Services but previously spent six years working as an Enforcement Agent, becoming the North West trainer for one of the biggest enforcement companies in England & Wales that primally delt with evictions for rent arrears, council tax arrears and commercial debt. His experience gives an insight into the techniques Enforcement Agents use to try and recover debts on the doorstep and illustrates the real dangers that they face when dealing with unpredictable debtors:

“Normally as an enforcement agent you work alone, so when you see the TV shows and they have a couple of enforcement agents knocking on doors at once, don’t be fooled – that is only for TV.

One morning I had a list of jobs to work through in sunny Blackpool, but luckily on this day I had a trainee with me on his very first day on the job. En route to Blackpool we went for a coffee to go through training and what we would be doing for the day.  A lot of the training for a new agent at this point is just to obverse how the job is done correctly and the most effective way to collect debt while working on their NVQ in Taking Control of Goods qualification.

Once we got to Blackpool, we had a couple of great results with payments promptly made in full, following a quick knock on their doors.

We had a couple more debtors to try before we could head back home to Manchester. 

We parked up outside our next address of a male debtor who owed council tax arrears. Outside the property was a brand-new Audi A4. After doing a quick DVLA check on the vehicle we established the car was free of finance and the debtor was the sole owner and could potentially be seized to recover the debt if required.

We knocked on the debtor’s door but received no answer. We walked around the back of the property to see a male in the bedroom window who quickly disappeared once they saw us standing in their back garden.

We first tried to make peaceful entry (trying the door to see if it is unlocked) on both the front and back doors but this time the doors were locked, and we were unbale to force entry with that type of writ.

We then knocked on the neighbour’s door, as most debtors don’t like us speaking to neighbours and will come out to resolve, but it also enabled us to confirm the person in the property was in fact the debtor and that it was his car.

As soon as we had confirmation of this, I got a quick clamp from the boot of the car and asked my trainee to watch my back whilst I fit it to the debtor’s car. As I bent down to put the clamp around the tire, I heard my trainee shout “Aaron, watch out!”

The debtor had come out of the back door and was setting up to kick me but luckily, I was able to jump out of the way just in time and he kicked the clamp instead – which you can imagine would have hurt quite a lot!

This then turned into a criminal matter, rather than a civil matter, and the police were called. When the police arrived, they asked if I wanted to press charges or if I wanted to continue with collecting the debt, so because I was not injured, I just requested that they stay to ensure there was no further breach of the peace. 

As the back door was left open, we were able to peacefully enter and make an inventory of goods on items in the property and a clamp on the car, so the debtor had no other choice but to pay the debt in full to avoid the car and goods being removed.