Residential Tenant Eviction
in England & Wales

Residential Premises Repossession

If you have a tenant you want to evict in a residential property or in a commercial property with residential property attached then you will need to obtain a possession order in the county court before being able to instruct bailiffs to repossess your property.

The best route to do this is to take professional legal advice from a suitably qualified and experienced solicitor. If you don’t know of one we would be happy to recommend a solicitor from our panel of approved solicitors; just contact us and ask. Our panel does include fixed price solicitors that can do everything from start to finish at a reasonable fixed fee.

You can also obtain a possession order yourself using the government online service. If you are not familiar with using the service it can easily go wrong and cost you more in the long run, so using a specialist solicitor is definitely the best course of action.

Before you can issue the claim you must go through a period of giving notice in the correct manner to the tenant by issuing the appropriate legal notice.

Enforcing the Possession Order

A Possession Order is obtained from the County Court to evict persons from a property.

Once an Order for Possession is obtained you will more than likely need to enforce this as people will not leave voluntarily.

When a claimant gets an order for possession from the County Court it only entitles them to use County Court bailiffs to enforce the order.

County Court Bailiffs work for the Ministry of Justice. The cost of using these bailiffs is around £120 at the time of writing and they must be instructed via the court that issued your order for possession.

At times, particularly in London and the south east, there can be a waiting list of 13/20 weeks. Since the pandemic this can be up to 8 months.

Update June 2023

London Evictions hit Standstill due to County Court Bailiff Safety Concerns

As Covid becomes a thing of the past, wait times to evict tenants looked to be declining, however, this is all set to change for the worse.

London landlords face increased wait times to evict tenants from residential properties due to bailiff operations being suspended indefinitely. A mass email sent from London’s biggest court, the Central London Court, has warned of the suspension of bailiff appointments for the “foreseeable future”.

One bailiff (as reported by LandlordZone) has reported an 80% reduction in caseload, as court bailiffs are being required to use the appropriate PPE to carry out evictions, which they are currently without.

This means even longer wait times for landlords in the London and Southeast areas, which traditionally already have high wait times for those landlords wishing to carry out an eviction.

It is now understood that the problem may be spreading to other parts of the UK, with County Court Bailiffs “downing tools” over safety concerns and a lack of proper equipment.

A Faster Alternative

A faster alternative is to transfer the County Court issued Possession Order to a High Court Writ of Possession.

Private bailiffs working under the direction of a High Court Enforcement Officer are then able to enforce the writ.

A Writ of Possession is the document a High Court Enforcement Officer(HCEO) requires to give them legal authority to use force to gain possession of a building.

We can transfer up the Possession Order quickly and enforce your writ soon afterwards.

At Frank G Whitworth we enforce all writs of possession from a standard house repossession through to squatters and protestors.

The cost will depend upon the circumstances of the repossession. Please telephone to discuss pricing options before completing the instruction form.

Attending the Eviction

By law we require you or your representative to attend and sign to receive vacant possession of the property or land. For safety reasons the attending person must not take any part in the possession.

Cost

The cost of this service is usually fixed at £1295 including Vat (subject to our terms and conditions). This includes the solicitor’s fees for uncontested applications, administration costs, transfer up and Court fees, serving the required notice which must be done by the bailiff and the eviction itself.

If you want us to obtain a combined Writ of Possession and Control and try and enforce for rent arrears or damages, then there is an extra fee of £90, making the total £1385 including Vat.

Fees and refunds

We require payment up front, which is none refundable, even if the occupier leaves before the eviction takes place. The only time we will refund any part of the fees, is if permission to transfer up is refused. Although permission is usually granted, the Court can refuse to issue permission. In these cases, we cannot be held responsible for permission being refused. The application will have incurred charges, but a partial refund of £690 will be made.

Limits on fixed fee

With all options, if there are any litigation or defendant applications, these must be dealt with by yourselves or you will have to pay the legal firm at their hourly rate to deal with it. This fixed fee is not applicable to squatters, HMO’s or where serious resistance is encountered. These situations will all require additional resources which we will agree with you before the action is commenced. The fees cover the first 2 hours on site by a bailiff which in 99% of evictions is all this normally takes. Any further time is £90 plus vat per man per hour.

Locksmith

The only other cost would be for the locksmith that the claimant must provide. Please note this must be a properly qualified locksmith.

How do I instruct you?

Do it on-line by completing the form. Please telephone to discuss pricing options before completing the instruction form.

Residential Tenant Eviction

I have a question

Telephone or email Frank G Whitworth for advice about Residential Tenant Eviction.

Telephone 0208 106 5397

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The Professionals

Accreditations, CHAS, Contractors Health and Safety Assessment, British Landlords AssociationAccreditations held by Enforcement Bailiffs Ltd t/a Frank G Whitworth