Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

On several occasions my late MiL had the bailiffs at the door. The reason, her arrogant, domineering husband would not let her have a cheque book to pay the bills, or access to their bank account. When brown envelopes came in the mail he would just throw them unopened into his desk drawer. Presumably to be dealt with later, he had the money to pay the bills. Hence it would get to the stage of the bailiffs.

After his death his widow felt very liberated, managed her finances, had holidays (which they never did when he was alive). It gave her a new lease of life.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

Bailiffs should not be aggressive, but at the same time if people don't pay their debts their goods should be removed.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

Exactly. For the most part bailiffs remove luxury goods, cars, TVs, computers. If you owe money then it's only fair that if you own luxury items they should be forfeit to pay your debts.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

Indeed what about the people to whom they owe the money ?
I doubt they bother taking second hand microwaves cookers or fridges as these have practically zero second hand value .

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

The one thing that really p*sses me off about this country is that a fine is the answer to everything. If you can't pay a bill, you get fined, if you can't pay a parking ticket, you get fined extra. You even get fined these days for leaving a piece of cardboard sticking out of your recycling box. The numpties who dish out these fines don't seem to realise that if you can't pay the original bill, you can't pay the fine either.

I am pleased for those who have never had to worry about money and can pay all their bills without getting into debt but I can say from experience that being in debt is not some life of free luxury. There are many reasons why debt happens and it can be the most stressful, soul destroying time you can go through and sometimes leads to thoughts of suicide. So a couple of skinhead thugs knocking on your door threatening to nick your TV doesn't exactly help matters.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

We weren't well off when we married in 1969, and had to be very, very careful with the money we had. We couldn't afford a TV, a car, washing machine, fridge or freezer, to start with. The night before I got my money for the week , £4, we had to make do with baked beans on toast. We never ever went to a pub, or could afford alcohol for that matter. We only spent money on absolute priorities. I wonder how many of the people who get themselves into debt have done that?

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

Probably more than you think Tara.
People take on financial commitments and if something happens to prevent them meeting those obligations they can easily become in debt. It's not really the life choice they opted for.
Not to be confused with general malingerers and idle-arses.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

I feel very sorry for people who get in debt through no fault of their own, but as for the rest, I have no sympathy whatsoever.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

There are very strict rules on what they are allowed to take. They have to leave you with a cooker or microwave, a fridge, a washing machine, table and chairs, beds and bedding and a phone for example.
In practice, they usually only take luxury goods because the purose isn't supposed to be to punish but to take things that can be sold at auction to pay the debts.

They can't come into your home and take anything unless you let them in, unless they are from tax or VAT or have a Magistrate's court warrant.

I have every sympathy, it's very easy to slip into debt, especially if you're living in poverty but if you've accrued luxuries, like a car, while you were accruing debt, it seems only right that those luxuries should be forfeit because really you've bought them at someone else's expense.

Re: Bailiffs Aggressive Behaviour

Yes, it's amazing the things debtors say to try to 'justify' their criminal deceptions.

There was a Bailiff programme on TV where the property owner (The Landlord) was the guys mother, poor women had taken out a mortgage to buy the house to enable her useless druggie son to have some where to live and all he did was abuse her by not paying the (very low) rent.

Then to cap it all he tried to blame all the credit card companies because they offered him more and more credit.

The simplest way to avoid debt is to not buy things unless you have money to pay for them, we don't go to the pub every night, we don't take holidays, we don't eat out ever, and we don't buy things just because they've been advertised on the box.