“We can force our way in.”
New case law says: No you can’t – not without real legal power.

A very important County Court judgment from late 2025 – Southern Housing v Emmanuel [2025] EWCC 58 – has just put a hard brake on the idea that companies can simply get a judge to bless forced entry into your home whenever you say “no”.
It is not Supreme Court level, but the reasoning is powerful and is already being treated as persuasive guidance for housing, utilities and enforcement work.
Here is what it means in plain English.

What the judge actually said
In Emmanuel; a social landlord wanted to do a gas safety check. The tenant wouldn’t let them in. The landlord:

Got an injunction ordering the tenant to allow access;

Came back and asked the judge to add a clause saying they could force entry if access was still refused.
District Judge Cridge’s answer was crystal clear:

“My decision is that no judge can give a landlord permission to force entry into their tenant’s home for things like inspections, repairs and safety checks. I think Parliament would need to change the law before a judge could make that kind of order.”

He held that:
Possession orders, injunctions, EX96 forms, and Civil Procedure Rules do not create a general power of forced entry into homes;
If statutes (Acts of Parliament) do not clearly give that power, judges cannot invent it by “enforcing” orders or using clever wording in case-management rules.
Even for gas safety, where the landlord had real legal duties, the judge said the only lawful tools were:
contempt of court (fine or prison for disobeying an injunction); or
bringing possession proceedings – not kicking the door in.

The core principle: forced entry needs clear law, not bluff or forms
Emmanuel doesn’t magically stop all entry, but it re-states a very old English rule:
Your front door is not meant to be kicked in for civil matters unless Parliament has clearly said so.
The judgment makes three key points that matter for everyone:

Civil procedure rules are not weapons.
CPR 70.2A, 25.1 and 3.1 are about how courts manage cases and enforce orders. They cannot override your basic rights or create brand-new powers to break into homes.

Standard court forms are not magic keys.
Forms like EX96 (bailiff appointments) may talk loosely about “reasonable force”, but they do not turn civil judgments into break-in warrants. The judge went through EX96 line by line and still said there was no power to authorise forced entry.

If the law is silent, the default is your front door stays shut.
Powers to enter without consent must come from:
an Act of Parliament (statute), or
very specific common law (e.g. genuine emergencies, real breach of the peace).
No statute = no lawful forced entry, however much inconvenience non-entry causes.

So what about utilities, council tax, debt collectors?
Emmanuel is about a landlord, but the logic carries across to other people who knock on your door claiming they can “force entry”.
It does not mean you can ignore warrants or emergencies. But it does mean:
If someone says “the court lets us break your door down”, they should be able to point to a specific law and a specific warrant – not just “the judge said we can” or “it’s in the small print”.
Here is how it plays out in practice:

Utility companies (gas, electricity, water)
For ordinary bill debt, utility companies cannot just force entry.
They sometimes have statutory powers of entry (for example, suspected meter tampering or dangerous situations), but then they must usually:
apply to a magistrates’ court for a warrant of entry under the relevant Act;
show why entry is necessary and proportionate;
and use authorised officers, not generic debt collectors.
Emmanuel makes it much harder to argue that a civil judge can “top up” those powers using the CPR. If the statute does not allow “break the door in”, a court can’t create that power by injunction.
So if a utility rep says:
“We’ve been to court, we can force our way in now,”
you are entitled to ask:
Which Act?
Which warrant?
Can I see it?

Return to Bomb Alley 1982 – The Falklands Deception, by Paul Cardin

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