Urgent help needed re eviction notice

[PeacefulWarrior]

Hello and my apologies for asking for help at such short notice. The eviction date is set for 03.11.2023. It seems have wasted my time over the last week or so, asking for help and posting on other forums. However well intentioned, the people there were either clueless and giving hear say advice, or they just voiced personal opinions in the matter. I am so glad I have come across this forum and I will try to keep this as short as possible:

1.On 20.10.2023, a 2 weeks notice of eviction(dated the 19th) from the court at the address where I live, specifying a time and date when the HCEO will come around with a representative of the landlord: 03.112023 at 10AM. A writ has been issued and the property should be vacated by that point, it says. The problem I have is that I am away in Europe with my wife, attending to her mom's health problems, having left on 11.10.2023 due to an emergency. In the property at the moment there are our 2 children, 15 yo son and 18 yo daughter. Our return flight is on the 11.11.2023
2. On the 31.10.2023 I have filled in a N244 and ask the court for a postponement. I am still waiting for an answer from the Court and will call them today to see what the status of the N244 is. Everything we have is inside the house and there is nothing we can do to remove the belongings, goods, tools, etc. before the date.
3. I have also emailed the Authorized Person named on the notice of eviction(works for Equivo), explaining the issue to him and asking for a few days postponement, to give us a chance to return and deal with the matter in person. I was hoping he would be a reasonable person. How wrong was I. He brushed off everything I said and he informed me that he will proceed with the eviction regardless. He was implying he is a HCEO and will come and bring a locksmith with him and replace the locks, while kicking our kids out. He sent me some links to irrelevant or inapplicable laws, hoping to confuse me. searched his name on HCEO's database, came up empty. His answer to that is that the writ was issued on someone else's name. I looked that person up, again no results. He then told me that the power will be delegated and someone else entirely will turn up. Twists and turns, he seems a complicated man.

I have print screened the pages where they both claim to be HCEO's, as evidence, should they change the print. The notice of eviction I have received is pretty clear that the person named as the Authorized Person will come at the property, with the landlord's rep, to change the locks. This same person should also be an HCEO. From what he told me, he is neither a HCEO, nor it will be himself who will visit the property. Is it me, or this seems wrong? What the Court has said on the Notice that will happen should be adhered to strictly, should it not? Otherwise anyone can get a writ and then send someone else to enforce it.

[zeke]

Apply to stay the eviction and give your reason it to give you time to remove your belongings to a new address.

Move valuables out now.

If a child under 12 is home alone the Bailiffs must withdraw without making enquiries.

If a child under 16 is home alone the Bailiffs can make enquiries when the tenant will be home and then must withdraw.

If you can, engage with the landlord to give breathing space.

Forums don't specialise in Bailiffs. They tend to be a jack-of-all-trades after starting out with a single focus.

Facebook groups on Bailiffs provide service for the social classes, that is council tax. They are administered by single mums at home who themselves were victims of bailiffs.. None of the Facebook bailiff groups are set up for providing structured advice or setting out remedies. They simply don't have the technical knowledge.

The forum that put forward personal opinion is probably the Consumer Action Group. One of its moderators has a severe form of autism. He pastes the same diatribe all over the boards and turned it into a wasteland. In 2017, It's hosting company came moment's from pulling it off the Internet after it's administrator gave a list of demands before he would take down a defamatory article posted there by an Internet troll.

[PeacefulWarrior]

Hi Zeke and thank you for the reply. Trying my best to put a stop to things, on the 31.10.2023 I filled a N244 with the Court, 3 days before the eviction date. I did not receive any news from the Court and it did nothing to stop the bailiffs from turning up to the door today. As advised by yourself and other people who seem to know what needs to be done, I instructed our 15 year old son to lock both locks on the front door and speak to the people from the upstairs window. He recorded all the interaction. He told the people at the door that he is 15 and he would like them to go away. He repeated that a few times, while they were trying to lure him in and give them all sorts of details. I was with him live on WhatsApp all the way, telling him what to do as things started unfolding in a very skewed direction.
The people at the door started to force their way in. At that moment I told him to call 999. The Police said they are on their way. However, they did not turn up until about 1 hr later.
Meanwhile, they people at the door started to break in:
1. They first drilled the top Yale lock
2. They then drilled and cut out a section of the door to remove the bottom lock, a turn key older style one.
3. Seeing that the door had been secured with 4 inch screws to the doorframe, they had to go away and returned with more tools.
4. They started cutting the door down and eventually broke through it
5. Before they managed to do that(took them the best part of 1 hr), I told my son to secure the upstairs door leading to the stairs, the next door up as you come in, the second line of defense, as it were.
6. He put about 10 screws in that too, all around it and through the floor
7. The bailiffs, having broken in through the front door, got to the first floor and second door. My son kept shouting at them, telling them that he is a vulnerable person and that they are acting unlawfully and need to leave. They warned him to step away from the door, so as not to get hurt.
8. This internal door wasn't nearly as robust as the front door and it took them about 5 minutes to break it to pieces and make their way in
9. I then told my son to retreat to the living room and barricade himself inside by putting the sofa in front of the door.
10. He did that and the bailiffs started forcing that door too

Thankfully, the Police finally arrives at that point and one of them starts to talk to my son through the closed door, trying to persuade him to come out. I told him to tell the Police that the people next to them have just broken into the property, despite him telling them that he is 15 and that they should go away. They kept asking him to let the bailiffs and themselves in. He told them that the only place he feels safe in is the room where he was now and he will not come out.
I took over the conversation and asked the Police officer why they are there and instead of dealing with the people that broke in, he was asking my son to come out and leave the property. They said that they have checked the papers and that the bailiffs were carrying out an legal eviction and that I should tell my son to open the door and leave the premises, otherwise he was obstructing the eviction and he would be eventually removed from there. They insisted that the house had already been taken over and it was now in the hands of the bailiffs. He said that because our son was 15, they have a duty of care and will need to take him into custody, once the Child protection Services will arrive on the scene. Realizing that my son would be put in danger eventually, despite him being strong and brave, I told him to open the door and pass phone to the Police officer.
I then asked the bailiff to tell me who he was. I checked his credentials and he was indeed on HCEOA's. However, I asked him why the name on the writ was different and he said that the power had been delegated to him by the Firm he was working for.
I asked both the Police officer to allow the son to take his medication and a few spare clothes, as he would be going to stay with neighboring friends for a few days, until our return on the 11.11.2023. They agreed. Then they said that they will take him into their custody and to the local Police station, to put him into CPS care and house him somewhere. I told them I do not allow that and that his 18 yo sister will come to the property shortly and take him under here care. They asked for his sister's phone number and details, our details, friend's details, checked everyone and then said that would be fine with them.
As soon as our daughter arrived and took some personal belongings from the house, the Police drove them to our friend's house across the street.
The bailiffs then said they will take some pictures and then lock the property, then leave. All this time we had a friend watching the front door from inside his car, to make sure nothing was removed from the property without our knowledge or permission. A few minutes later the bailiffs left.
I asked the HCEO that was in charge of the eviction what will happen to our belongings and he said that they will allow supervised access to the property and we could then remove everything, as they are only there to secure the house and not it's contents.

I am now asking you: did this seem to you like a legal eviction, or has it turned into an illegal one and I should start talking to lawyers?

[zeke]

Its heavy handed. The landlord must have been pretty desperate to get his property back to cause so much damage and destruction.. .

Without having sight of the eviction order, its hard to say whether the eviction is legal. You should qualify for emergency housing because you have children under 18.

[PeacefulWarrior]

Heavy handed I love the way you described it. Yes, I guess it was. Just a tad, perhaps? According to our son, it was more like a full blown Siege, the guy doing the demolition was using a 2 sided Viking looking axe and hacked his way in, while the HCEO was shouting 'Stay away from the door, we are coming in!!!' So much for the: 'If a child under 16 is home alone the Bailiffs can make enquiries when the tenant will be home and then must withdraw.' I guess it doesn't apply to everyone, only those who know how to read.
I will seek legal advice upon my return to London. I have video evidence from 3 separate sources, 2 two friends witnesses and my son's phone. If I were a Judge, I would be mighty interested to see how writs issued by the Court are carried out in reality. Hopefully, justice will prevail.
Zeke, what would be your first port of call, when dealing with this?

[zeke]

Depends on what action you want to take.

Do you want your belongings recovered? do you want the property back, or is there an irregularity with the writ of possession?

Tenancy isn't my strong point. I know a few solicitors that are, but they aren't cheap. So you need to consider your objectives, and whether you have a strong chance of getting back your legal expenses.

Here, we deal with enforcement against goods to recover debt, rather than evictions.

[PeacefulWarrior]

'Tenancy isn't my strong point. I know a few solicitors that are, but they aren't cheap. So you need to consider your objectives, and whether you have a strong chance of getting back your legal expenses.

Here, we deal with enforcement against goods to recover debt, rather than evictions.'

Fair enough and thanks for clarifying that.

The action I would like to take is in regards to the way the HCEO has performed the eviction. Seeing that their power only comes from the Courts, they should abide by the rules and not cross any lines. Power can be easily abused. I just want to know if the HCEO was entitled to use force to break down door, while a 15 yo minor was alone in the property. If not, I would like to see his license revoked and he should pay the price for breaking the law.

Also, to me it seems wrong to have a third party who is not an HCEO doing the breaking in. The guy who broke the doors is a locksmith. Since when are locksmiths allowed to break people's doors down? I thought that privilege was solely bestowed upon burglars. Something just doesn't seem right here.

To make matters worse, beside the HCEO, there 2 more women, who never identified themselves. Who were these mystery women and who gave them the right to enter the property, go through every room and look through our personal stuff?

You seem to know a lot about these matters, could you explain these things to me?

[zeke]

Let me explain the difference between an HCEO and a bailiff.

Regulation 6 of the High Court Enforcement Officers Regulations 2004 prescribes the position of a High Court Enforcement Officer. Anyone with limited education and can apply to become one.

They are authorised to apply for and enforce high court writs of control, amongst other things. In your case a writ of possession.

They instruct an Enforcement Agent, called a bailiff, a position prescribed in section 63 of the Tribunals Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Again, the competency requirements have a very low bar. Anyone without secondary education and limited English and numeracy skills can be a bailiff. Just a driving license and pass a simple multiple-choice test.

They are authorised to take control of goods and sell them to pay an adjudged debt or take possession of demised premises.

If a bailiff breaches any of the enforcement regulations or provisions, the HCEO is personally liable.

Therefore HCEOs, and to a lesser extent, bailiffs, hide behind PO Box addresses and virtual offices, often long distances from their actual homes.

The two women are helpers for the bailiff. They can only be on the premises with the certificated bailiff. If the bailiff leaves the demised premises, they cannot be left alone. The HCEO remedies any wrong action by the two women. The HCEO can claim redress against his bailiff, and the bailiff redresses loss against anyone working under him.

Eviction isn't my forte. I give them to landlord-tenant solicitors. I deal in enforcement compliance. The UK has no industry regulator. Previous governments favour quasi-regulators funded by the enforcement industry, for example, CIVEA and the Enforcement Conduct Board.

In a secret shopper test earlier this year, neither of them correctly made a fact-find on a sample of failed enforcement cases, let alone identify the regulations breached.