Abandonment: If an enforcement agent fails to maintain possession of the goods, they are then 'abandoned'. Failing to remain in possession of the goods, the enforcement agent loses any right to return and remove them. Any abandonment, however urgent and necessary, must be satisfactorily accounted for if the enforcement agent is to retain the rights.
Certificated Enforcement Agent: Private enforcement agents who may enforce commercial rent recovery (previously known as distress for rent), road traffic penalties or council tax must be in receipt of a certificate, granted under the Law of Distress Amendment Act 1888, as amended by the Law of Distress Amendment Act 1895. This is granted by a county court judge, who must be satisfied that the bailiff is a 'fit and proper person' to hold such a certificate.
Close possession: Where the debtor signs an agreement which allows the enforcement agent to stay on the premises with the goods until payment is made or the goods are removed for sale.
Conversion: This means that there has been a wrongful act of interference that deprives the owner of rights over their goods. So wrongfully taking goods into possession is conversion.
Common Law: Law as laid down in decisions of courts rather than by statute.
Commercial Rent Recovery: The name that will be replacing 'Distress for Rent'.
County Court bailiff: County court bailiffs are civil servants employed by the Court Service. Their duties include warrants of execution for debts that have arisen as a result of a county court judgment.
Creditor: A person/organisation to whom money is owed.
Damages: Money claimed by a claimant from a defendant as compensation for harm done or money awarded by a court as compensation to a claimant.
Data Disclosure Order: Court-based, post-judgment mechanism for the compulsory disclosure of information on the judgment debtor by third parties from the public and private sectors.
Debtor: A person who owes a sum of money - this may be a judgment debt or a criminal financial penalty which is in default, or a liability order.
Distrain/Distraint/Distress: To seize goods to pay for debts. Taking someone's goods to pay for debts.
Enforcement: This term refers to all actions used to obtain payment of a judgment debt, parking charges, magistrates' courts fines and penalties, local and national taxes and duties, commercial rent recovery, maintenance and child support which has not been paid voluntarily.
Enforcement Agent (Bailiff): Someone who is responsible for the enforcement of court orders (warrants of arrest, distress and execution). Included are all those employed in the public and private sectors, bailiffs, sheriffs' officers and distrainors.
Execution: The carrying out of a court order or the terms of a contract. Specifically, the seizure and sale of goods belonging to a debtor under the order or judgment of a civil court. It can also be used as a verb, e.g. 'the execution of a distress warrant'.
ECHR: The European Convention on Human Rights.
Illegal action: An enforcement action will be illegal if it was wrongful from the outset. This will occur if the enforcement agent did not have the right to distrain, or if he or she committed a wrongful act at the beginning of the levy which invalidated the subsequent proceedings.
Impounding: This is the process by which bailiffs obtain legal control over the goods which they have seized. In other words, the process of impounding gives the bailiff the power to return to the premises, remove and sell the goods. Goods could be impounded by immediate removal, by securing on the premises in a suitable place, or by leaving a bailiff in 'close possession' of the goods - i.e. on the premises. However, by far the most common method of impounding is 'walking possession'.
Irregular action: An enforcement action will be irregular if the levy was carried out correctly but the distrainor subsequently does something unlawful.
Levy: This word levy is generally used to refer to the process whereby a debtor's goods are seized and impounded; strictly, it comprehends the whole process of enforcement up to and including sale.
Replevin: Action brought to recover possession of goods which have been seized, in an illegal levy of distress; and subsequently to prove that the seizure was illegal.
Rescous/Rescue: This refers to an interference with goods that have been seized but not impounded.
Seizure: For practical purposes this term describes the seizure of goods by listing on an inventory and by taking walking possession.
Third Party Debt Order: Method of enforcement used by creditors to secure the payment of an outstanding judgment debt by freezing, then seizing money owed by a third party to the debtor in order to pay the judgment debt. The debts targeted are usually within institutions such as banks and building societies.
Walking Possession: Where the debtor signs an agreement which allows the goods to stay on the premises without supervision until payment or the goods are removed for sale.
Warrant: As in 'Warrant of distress', 'warrant of execution' - the authorisation which allows bailiffs to carry out the processes of distress or execution. This includes writ of execution.
As set out in the Warrant Enforcement Law Chapter, one of the aims of the new legislation is to replace the old fashioned language that relates to enforcement law. Therefore words such as distress, distraint, execute and walking possession will no longer be used. Taking legal control of the goods will replace these words.