Stop council and creditors sending bailiffs to vulnerable persons

Aesop · 6 December 2017 at 9:12AM

Hi all

Please consider signing and verifying by email this petition.

You have to be a UK citizen and after signing the petition, they will send an email, so please use genuine details. You click through the link and verify you signed the petition.

What is the petition about?

We are trying to get the government to change the law so councils and debt collectors can no longer send bailiffs to vulnerable households.

What are vulnerable household?

Single parents, the very sick/ill persons, children usually present in the home when bailiffs come Knocking and walking into your home via unlocked doors, ie under 16 years of age, the elderly, the mentally ill.

What is our aim?

We want the council and debtors to stop using bailiffs with their extortionate fees which must be paid first before the debt starts getting paid. Stop sending bailiffs to vulnerable households who are struggling to pay their debts.

Instead offer these vulnerable household advice on how they can claim for help with their debt and manage to pay the debt back in affordable amounts.

How not to get into the situation where they are deciding between food and paying the council tax bill, etc.

If you have ever had a bailiff knock on your door, or know someone who has, you know how terrifying it is. You are already struggling and there is someone braying on your door demanding more money that you cannot afford.

There is help out there but people aren't educated to the help available or steps they can take when stuck.

So please consider signing this petition.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/204022

gettinnerdy · 7 December 2017 at 12:32AM

I make love in just my socks and baseball cap.

NeilCr · 7 December 2017 at 9:15AM

That’s not true at all about the CAB.

We have debt advisors and we do not just tell people to pay the bailiffs.

I have some sympathy for your petition but would not sign anything with such incorrect information around it.

Enterprise_1701C · 7 December 2017 at 10:47AM

What checks would there be to make sure there are "vulnerable people" at home? Would every house that states that have to be visited to check, or would you just be able to state that someone at the address was seriously ill/disabled etc?

Don't get me wrong, I do not agree with bailiffs, but it just seems to be a get out of jail free card to people that want to run up debts and not pay them.

macman · 7 December 2017 at 11:26AM

Why do you assume that every single parent, or every home with children, or with adults of pensionable age, is 'vulnerable'? Going by your logic, the only properties that bailiffs would be able to attend would be those occupied by adult singles or couples, of working age and childless, with no physical or mental ailments.
No responsible bailiff would ever enter a property where the only occupants were children under 16. And very few councils resort to bailiffs when they have the option of attachment of earnings orders and third party benefit deductions, which are far more efficient means of collection.

NCC-1707 · 7 December 2017 at 2:29PM

The people owed money can often be the victims and less 'well off' than those who owe money. I'm unemployed and owed 2k by someone who has a lucrative business. By you logic they shouldn't pay?

BTW...what does this mean?:-

'There is help out there but people are. It educated to the help available or steps they can take when strut'

ska_lover · 7 December 2017 at 5:08PM

The bailiffs and courts are not the first port of call though are they - these are last resorts after several attempts to reclaim money over a period of time, have been made

I don't agree with bailiffs, but there has to be some recompense for genuine people to claim back money they are owed - and by the time it has got to bailiffs, they have already had notice of the issue, letters coming through etc

I had bailiffs at my door once for a council tax debt, when I was a single parent about 20 years back - do you know the effect it had? it made me pull my socks up and sort out my finances. Never again, the shame and embarrassment. No I didn't feel vulnerable. I knew the day was coming.. as awful as it was that day, it did do me a favor long term

Owain_Moneysaver · 7 December 2017 at 5:18PM

Not surprisingly, when the bailiffs turn up and threaten to seize goods many defaulters suddenly find they have money to pay their debts after all.

ska_lover · 7 December 2017 at 5:22PM

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Not surprisingly, when the bailiffs turn up and threaten to seize goods many defaulters suddenly find they have money to pay their debts after all.

I don't think its a case of having the money (for most) though Owain, more like a series of panicked, humiliating phone calls to relatives

Owain_Moneysaver · 7 December 2017 at 10:50PM

ska_lover wrote: »

I don't think its a case of having the money (for most) though Owain, more like a series of panicked, humiliating phone calls to relatives

Comes to the same thing: they could have paid their debts, but didn't and hoped their problems would go away at other people's expense.

Iwanttobefree · 7 December 2017 at 11:06PM

ska_lover wrote: »

The bailiffs and courts are not the first port of call though are they - these are last resorts after several attempts to reclaim money over a period of time, have been made

Trouble is, they often lack common sense and compassion,. While I'm going back quite a few years, I owed Guildford council council tax due to being unable to work for a number of months due to illness.

I got a job and made them an offer where the arrears would be paid off over 2 years and I still had enough money to pay the current council tax and all my other bills.

That wasn't good enough for them, and they applied for an attachment of earnings that meant I simply didn't have enough to live on.

End result, bearing in mind I was just getting over a big illness, the stress they put on me by doing that (and the fact that my new employers were now also aware) after a week I left my job.

This was the ONLY way I could keep my head above water.

My GP signed me off with depression, they took about 5 years to finally get their money back instead of over the two years I originally offered them.

Well done them.

Stop council and creditors sending bailiffs to vulnerable persons

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