A new landmark ruling effectively prevents enforcement agents from seizing goods in connection with council tax and even entering anyone’s property.

This hands defendants a £4000 Christmas bonus if they sue bailiffs for illegal enforcement.

When a council obtain a liability order, they will seek to enforce this order by way of sending in enforcement officers, sometimes known as bailiffs.

The conduct of these enforcement officers is strictly controlled under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.

Schedule 12 details that the enforcement officer must show their identity and proof of authority from the court that entitles them to be on the premises.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/15/schedule/12

In section 26, as follows:

In the recent case of Leighton versus Bristol & Sutor that was ironically published on the winter solstice ☃️, the judge ruled that the document used by the enforcement agents was unlawful and was not in accordance with the above act because all they did was to simply show their instructions from the council to enforce the debt, rather than the order from the court. Consequently, Mr. Leighton was awarded £4000 damages plus costs, plus interest.

Christmas parasite cleanse.

This now means that anyone can use this judgement not only to fend off these parasites from their doorsteps but to actually sue them for damages unless they show the correct paperwork. And this is where the fun starts…

Collusion between the courts and councils has now led to their downfall.

In order to make it progressively easier for councils to resist requests from defendants for the council to prove a liability order was actually granted, the courts were persuaded to do away with the old-fashioned written liability order signed by a judge and instead ruled that the oral pronouncement of the order was all that was required, which means the enforcement companies now have a big problem to provide written proof that any order was even granted because as we know recordings in courts are illegal!

In effect the new court ruling has mandated that enforcement companies must provide something that doesn’t exist and if they do turn up on someone’s doorstep illegally, then they can be sued for £4000 not having the correct paperwork or maybe even arrested.

Welcome to the Christmas feast of Whupass.

How delicious it is when the universe serves up multiple cans of Whupass on these corrupt and mendacious entities that have preyed upon the vulnerable in society for too long.

The law also stipulates that the enforcement company must provide the required paperwork IN ADVANCE. Therefore anyone that puts the enforcement company and / or the council on notice of this can prevent them even turning up.

It gets even better…

In the judgement, the applicant was disbarred from obtaining damages under the harassment act 1997 on the basis that the conduct of the enforcement company naturally entitled some element of harassment due to the fact that it was their job to take people’s stuff away and were acting lawfully and in good faith when doing so.

Here is the kicker…

When they are put on notice of their obligations under the new ruling to provide written proof from the court of their entitlement to attempt to distress goods, and they turn up without the necessary proof, then they are not entitled to claim that their actions are in good faith and in accordance with the law, and therefore because they are not there lawfully, they have no reasonable excuse under the Harassment Act 1997. Therefore they are breaching it. Potentially a criminal offence.

Christmas behind bars.