The Guardian today highlights serious, long-term breaches of regulations designed to protect the public from excessive enforcement fees.
The Enforcement Conduct Board has been active on this issue for some time, working to ensure Marston refunds those affected and makes urgent changes to its practices.
Commenting, Chris Nichols, CEO of the ECB said:
“Our mission is to ensure that everyone who experiences enforcement action is treated fairly and it is very concerning to see breaches of regulations that are there to protect the public from overcharging.
“This is unacceptable behaviour and the Enforcement Conduct Board is taking strong action to ensure that people who have been impacted are found and refunded and that this behaviour is never repeated.
“We have ensured that Marston has signed up to a robust action plan to put this right. We will closely monitor Marston’s progress in delivering this plan and will not hesitate to take further action to protect the public if necessary.
“We will also imminently launch a wider review to establish whether this behaviour has occurred at other enforcement companies. Should we find that it has, we will take appropriate action.”
Ends.
Notes for Editors
About the ECB
The ECB is the independent oversight body for the enforcement (“bailiff”) sector in England and Wales. Our mission is to ensure that everyone experiencing enforcement action is treated fairly and protected from poor practice.
What is enforcement action?
In England and Wales, enforcement agents, formerly known as bailiffs, enforce the payment of money owed to public bodies, private companies and, in some cases, individuals.
Enforcement agents get their powers from the Tribunals, Courts, and Enforcement Act 2007. Using a warrant of control or writ issued by a court, enforcement firms and agents will ask for payment. If they are not able to collect the money owed, they have the power to take control of certain goods under the Taking Control of Goods Regulations (TCOG) and sell them at public auction to offset the debt.
Once a company or local authority hands a debt over to enforcement firms for collection, there are three stages to the process:
- Compliance stage – a Notice of Enforcement is sent to the debtor, giving them details of the debt and how to pay. Debtors will have at least 7 days to make payment. A fee of £75 is usually added to the debt and paid to the enforcement firm.
- Enforcement stage – if the debt is not paid by the stipulated date (or a payment plan set up), an enforcement agent can visit the person’s home. At this stage, a fee of £235 is added to the original debt.
- Sale stage – If the payment is still not made, enforcement agents can remove and sell certain goods. A fee of £110 is added at this stage.
How often does enforcement action take place?
- ECB data found that the enforcement industry received 4m cases for enforcement under TCOG between 1 April to 30 Sept 2024.
- 63% of the cases were related to road traffic and parking, 26% Council Tax.
- The total debt value of those 4m TCOG cases was £2.6bn.
What are the rules on the linking of fees?
All ECB-accredited firms are required to follow the ECB’s Standards.
Under ECB Standard FS1.6, firms are required to link enforcement fees where a person has multiple debts and enforcement action could reasonably be carried out at the same time. The exact wording of the Standard is that all Enforcement Firms must:
“have a system which links multiple debts owed by the same person so that, after charging the compliance fee, only one set of fees are charged where the activity that generates the fee can reasonably be carried out at the same time.”
This is so that only one set of fees are charged. Standard FS1.6 echoes Regulation 11 of The Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014
The Marston cases relate to members of the public who have been charged more than one enforcement stage fee (£235) when the debts were, or should have been, enforced at the same time.
How has the ECB responded to the breach of this Standard?
Whenever we find a breach of our standards, we usually have two main priorities:
1) ensuring proper remedies and refunds for people who have been unfairly treated, and 2) protecting the public from future breaches.
In this case, we have agreed a Supervised Action Plan to ensure remedies for everyone impacted, and to prevent any future harm. We have worked intensively with Marston on the action plan and we will closely monitor delivery of that plan. We will be able to escalate to sanctions if the plan is not delivered appropriately.
We will imminently launch a wider review to establish whether the same breach is occurring at other Enforcement Firms. More detail will follow in due course. We expect to publish the high-level findings of this review towards the end of this year.