Avoid getting caught in the legal system (at all costs)

R.T. writes: I am the financial controller of a company that used a rating appeals firm to recover about £2,000. When it billed us for more than it recovered, we refused to pay. They sued and we lost, which we accepted. The firm’s claim went through Direct Collection Bailiffs Limited, famed for TV’s Can’t Pay, We’ll Take It Away. It appears to have sent a demand to our registered office, but we did not see it as our trading address is different. A bailiff enforcement agent then called on a director, who called me and I offered to pay in full with my card. The agent wanted what are called ‘first stage’ legal costs, but then said that as he had not been paid immediately, he wanted a further £495 in ‘stage two’ costs. If I argued, he said he would simply go to the next stage and add more costs. I paid, but felt we had been ripped off for more than £600 for a 20-minute visit, so we went to court to claim a refund. We won, but the bailiff company appealed and we were forced to withdraw. YOU really have found out the hard way that it is worth almost anything not to get caught up in the legal system, since costs can easily outweigh any benefits. Justice and the law are like distant cousins. They are related and they might nod when they meet, but they often fail to speak to each other.

If you had told the enforcement agent you could not pay in full, the likely result would have been that he would have taken a list of goods to seize, but remained at the first stage for costs. In court, the judge accepted that it was illogical for the bailiff company to charge extra costs when it was being paid on the spot, but the bailiffs then forked out thousands of pounds for a barrister to appeal to a higher court, forcing you to withdraw simply because the legal bill far outweighed the few hundred pounds of stage two costs.

It is hard to resist the conclusion that the bailiff slapped on the extra costs, knowing it would cost you far more in legal fees if you objected. But its lawyer Yasmin Mia told me: ‘High Court enforcement allows for fees for more than one stage to be applied in one attendance.’

The judge was quite simply wrong, she explained, when he decided that the agent could not charge two levels of fees for just one visit.

That, in a nutshell, shows how far apart justice and the law can be.