Rejected petition Stop private companies being able to instruct bailiffs without a court judgement

Many private citizens are chased by bailiffs or debt collection for debts that are not theirs or a mistake made by a company. The company does not have to provide any reasonable standard of proof to do this. The individual has no choice but to pay and can be threatened to do so.

More details

Stop companies being able to chase debt without a court judgement and a reasonable proof that the debt is owed. Allow mechanisms for challenge before the debt is passed to debt collectors to ensure the private citizen can challenge wrongful proceedings. It is not right to put the burden on the citizen to have to go to court to prove they do not owe money whilst being threatened and bailiffed. The burden of proof should be on the company. Faceless companies nowadays mean no ability to challenge.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.

Bailiffs can only be instructed after a court order has been made.

We could accept a petition calling on the Government to ban the use of private debt collection agencies without a court order.

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 4 March 2023
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.