Member News
By Lord Lucas - 23rd February 2010
Lord Lucas writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his question on courts awarding damages against people using the official 'form 4' to complain against bailiffs.
'Form 4' is the official form, reproduced on government websites without any effective health warning, for making complaints about bailiffs. Recently, courts have been awarding thousands of pounds in costs against complainants who use this form unsuccessfully. It seems to me outrageous that an official complaints system should work in this fashion.
Bailiff action is quite naturally something that gives rise to a level of complaint. Bailiffs are extracting money from people who, generally, have had plenty of opportunity to pay (though there are, of course, cases where previous papers have gone astray), and they therefore need to use a certain amount of moral force to do so. The transaction is usually face-to-face, without independent witnesses.
Due to the inadequate and dilapidated state of bailiff law, there is also a level of abuse. Complaints should be dealt with properly, and reputable bailiff companies have internal procedures to do this, but where the complainant is not satisfied the government, as is proper and usual, provides a system for taking the matter further.
Bailiffs, though, are appointed ('certified') by courts, and so the complaint is made to a judge, rather than to a tribunal. Unlike most complaints tribunals, the judge can award full costs in favour of the bailiff, and several have taking to doing so in considerable amounts. £5,000 is becoming quite common, and I have heard of £10,000.
I do not doubt the correctness of the judges' decisions that the complaints did not merit costs being awarded, but I think that it is highly undesirable that the complaints system should work in this way. Injustices do occur, and a complainant ought not to have to rely on the mercy of the bailiff company itself, and be deterred from taking the matter further for fear of an enormous financial penalty.
I wish that the government would get a move on with its promised bailiff law reforms, and introduce the improved complaints system that we have all agreed is necessary. But in the interim they should take steps to make sure the complaints system we have does not land unsuspecting complainants with such eye-watering bills.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd