Ombudsman tells council to review bailiff procedures after clamping incident

The LGO has called on a council to review its bailiff procedures, after a complainant’s car was clamped without prior notice and the authority quoted repealed legislation when refusing to refund fees.

In a report on the incident, the Local Government Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin, also concluded that Redbridge Council had been unreasonable in its handling of the initial complaint from the owner of the car.

The case arose after the complainant, “Ms Young”, had received a parking contravention notice after the local authority’s CCTV saw her committing an offence.

However, she moved shortly afterwards and received none of the notices that Redbridge had sent.

When bailiffs for the council found her car (via number plate recognition software), they clamped it – even though they knew that the address on their warrant was not the same as her address.

Ms Young had to pay £741 to have the car released. A court accepted her late witness statement and cancelled the warrant.

Redbridge refunded the £172 parking penalty but refused to refund the bailiff’s costs.

Finding maladministration causing injustice, the LGO said the council had:

• Quoted repealed legislation as its justification for not refunding the bailiff’s fees;
• Failed to consider the actions of its bailiff, which were in contravention of Government guidance; and
• Insisted that Ms Young was at fault for not notifying the DVLA of her new address when she had done so.

Redbridge has agreed to refund the complainant the £569 she paid to the bailiffs. It has also agreed to pay a total of £354 for court fees, consultation fees she incurred unnecessarily and in recognition of her additional time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.

The council has put in place procedures with its bailiffs aimed at ensuring this type of incident does not happen again. It will also report back to the LGO on how it will deal with cases where bailiff fees have been paid, but the warrant is then cancelled by the court.

Dr Martin said: “The issue of councils taking responsibility for the actions of their bailiffs is a very important and pertinent one. This is not the first complaint of this type that we have looked at, and indeed, local authorities’ use of bailiffs has been the subject of a Focus Report. 

“Bailiffs often are the first face-to-face contact between a debtor and the council, and therefore they have a huge responsibility to ensure there are no issues with vulnerability or errors with a warrant.”