Sheriff’s Officers threaten to sell a car (anyone’s car) to pay council tax debt

client has a small council tax debt (no dispute here) - sheriff’s officer visits home of client to serve the charge - client is not home, but the officer notices a car outside the house. Client then receives a letter from sheriff’s officer stating;

“when our officer served the charge it was noted that a vehicle was present at your property, therefore we advise that legal documents have been prepared for the purpose of executing an Attachment of Vehicle(s) at your property. Once executed the vehicle can be sold at auction to allow the proceeds to be paid to your arrears”.

Now, on the surface of it this is not a problem for my client - because its not her vehicle and nor does she know what vehicle they’re talking about, she is non driver and does not hold a drivers licence and never has. She has a driveway but states no vehicles are ever in it, so the car in question must have been outside on the road, or in her driveway without her knowledge.

I raised the question of ownership with the sheriff’s officer involved and they say there is no onus on them to establish who owns it and that;

“once an attachment has been executed there is a period of time in which anyone claiming ownership of attached items can lodge an objection with the Court”. 

So it seems sheriff’s officers in Scotland believe its reasonable to take someone’s car (anyone’s car) and sell it at an auction to pay the council tax debt of a complete stranger - or at least threaten to carry out such action.

At the point of writing this I’m still trying to pick myself up off my seat - but does anyone know of a statutory requirements placed on the sheriff’s officers or if anything similar happens elsewhere. the whole thing stinks from where I’m sitting.

Any comments welcome as always.

I’ve not advised on this in Scotland, but it looks like the relevant legislation is the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2002/17/part/2

13 Presumption of ownership

(1)An officer may, when executing an attachment, proceed on the assumption that the debtor owns, solely or in common with a third party, any article which is in the possession of the debtor.

(2)The officer shall, before attaching any article, make enquiries of any person who is present at the place at which the article is situated as to the ownership of the article (and in particular shall enquire as to whether there is any person who owns the article in common with the debtor).

(3)The officer may not proceed on the assumption mentioned in subsection (1) above where the officer knows or ought to know that the contrary is the case.

(4)The officer is not precluded from relying on that assumption by reason only of one or both of the following circumstances—

(a)that the article belongs to a class which is commonly held under a hire, hire-purchase or conditional sale agreement or on some other limited title of possession;

(b)that an assertion has been made that the article is not owned by the debtor.

In England at least, the LGO has previously been critical of failures by council tax bailiffs to make a check with the DVLA for ownership before levying, with a particular concern being the bailiff fees not being removed once it is found that they levied on a third party’s car. A couple of years ago it apparently became less straightforward to do an instant online check, which may have led to bailiffs not doing so these days(?)

Afraid I can’t help Morti but you could try contacting my colleagues in our Scottish Office.

Advice line for frontline advisers and support staff in Scotland