Beat The Bailiff

If you're finding it hard to cut back on your spending, there's a new TV programme that might give you some added motivation.

This week the BBC launched a fascinating new television programme called Beat the Bailiff. The premise is based on what it's actually like to have bailiffs barging into your house to take your stuff and how much it would sell for at a repossession auction.

The featured debtors are not quite at the stage where the bailiffs come knocking but the programme puts them through a traumatic 48-hours in order to show them what will actually happen if they don't buck up their ideas.

The bailiffs turn up, make an inventory of anything valuable in the house and then come back with a van to collect it all. Cameras are set up in the house so the debtors can sit in an observation van outside watching strange men rummage through their personal belongings before loading them up and driving off with the lot. It's like watching burglars ransacking your home and not being able to do anything about it.

What brings home the point even more forcefully is that the debtors are then taken to a huge empty warehouse to watch a specialist in repossession auctions value what actually looks like a pitifully small collection of belongings. The estimated sale price for a computer bought for £1,800 is put at £150; a leather three-piece suite and coffee table bought for £3,500 is also put at £150; a £12,000 car is valued at £5,000.

The couple concerned in this particular programme had spent in the region of £33,000 on items for the house and garden and the whole lot was valued for auction purposes at just £5,500 after all the bailiff and auction costs. Shocking!

There is a Bill currently going through Parliament which gives bailiffs even more powers than they have now. At the moment, debtors can refuse entry to bailiffs but, if the Bill gets passed, they will no longer have the right to do so. Bailiffs will also have the right to apply to court to use reasonable force to enter people's homes whereas at the moment they're only allowed to gain entry through an open window or door.

So, if you're beginning to get warning letters about non-payment of bills, try watching Beat the Bailiff to see what might be in store for you if you don't take action to sort out your money problems. Sorry if that sounds harsh but you really don't want to let it get to that stage!