Bailiff Payment Options When You Cannot Afford to Pay

There are more of them than the letter suggests, and they are not interchangeable. Paying before an agent visits is a different transaction from paying after one has. An instalment offer to the agent is a different thing from an instalment offer to the council. And a Breathing Space moratorium, which people are often told to "use as a payment plan", is not a payment option at all. It is a statutory pause, and this page keeps it separate for that reason.

Paying at the compliance stage, before anyone visits

This is the cheapest stage and the one most often wasted.

A notice of enforcement must reach you at least 14 clear days before an enforcement agent can take control of your goods. Sundays, bank holidays, Good Friday and Christmas Day do not count towards that period.

The fee scale is fixed by regulation and identical at every firm. For instructions given under the scale in force from 1 May 2026, the compliance stage carries a fee of £79. The enforcement stage, which begins when an agent attends, adds £247, plus 7.5% of any sum to be recovered above £1,900. A sale or disposal stage adds a further £116, plus the same 7.5% on any sum to be recovered above £1,900.

The arithmetic is the whole argument for acting inside the notice period. Paying, or reaching an agreement, before an agent attends keeps the £247 off the balance entirely.

A notice of enforcement must also tell you certain things, and it is worth checking that yours did. Regulation 7 requires it to state the amount of the debt, the enforcement costs incurred so far, the possible additional costs if the sum stays unpaid, how and when payment can be made, the availability of free advice from a debt advice provider, and the possibility of extending the minimum notice period.

That last item matters more than its position in the list suggests. Where a debt advice provider submits a request on your behalf before the notice period expires, the minimum period is extended to 28 clear days. It does not apply where the debt is a non-eligible business debt. In practice this means a call to a free adviser inside the first fortnight can double the time you have to arrange something, at no cost.

What an affordable instalment offer looks like

An affordable offer is one you can still make in month seven, not the largest figure you can manage in month one.

Work it out from what is actually left, rather than from what the balance divided by twelve happens to be. Take your income after tax, including benefits, and subtract housing costs, council tax, energy, water, food, travel to work, childcare, insurance, essential medical costs and any priority arrears you are already repaying. What remains is what is available across all your non-priority creditors, and this debt is only one of them.

Two figures usually decide whether an offer is taken seriously: the monthly amount, and how many months it would take to clear the balance including fees. An offer that clears the account within a year is on very different ground from one that runs for five.

Be aware of the limit of what an offer can achieve. Nothing in Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and nothing in the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, gives you a right to pay an enforcement agent by instalments. An arrangement at that stage is discretionary, and the discretion sits inside whatever instructions the creditor has given the firm.

The evidence that makes an offer credible

An offer with figures behind it is a different proposition from a number said at a door.

Send an income and expenditure statement. A free debt adviser can produce one in a recognised format, which carries more weight than a list typed out at home because creditors know the figures have been tested. Alongside it, include recent evidence of the income you are relying on: wage slips, a benefit award letter, or a bank statement showing what actually arrives.

Where circumstances have changed, say what changed and when. A reduction in hours, a period of sick leave, a relationship breakdown or a bereavement all explain why an account fell behind, and they change how an offer reads.

If anyone in the household is vulnerable, put that in writing to the agent, to the firm and to the creditor. The Ministry of Justice's national standards state that creditors "must consider the appropriateness of referring debtors in potentially vulnerable situations to enforcement agents" and that where a debtor is identified as vulnerable creditors "should be prepared to take control of the case, at any time, if necessary." The same standards say enforcement agents "should be trained to recognise vulnerable debtors, to alert creditors where they have identified such debtors and when to withdraw from such a situation."

Do not inflate the outgoings. Creditors read these every day, and one figure that does not stand up discredits the rest of the statement.

Who actually decides

Three different parties can say yes, and they are not equally useful.

The enforcement agent at the door has the narrowest discretion. They work to instructions and, on most council accounts, to a minimum instalment or a maximum repayment period set by the client.

The enforcement firm's office can sometimes agree what an individual agent will not, particularly where a written statement of means arrives after the visit rather than during it.

The creditor, meaning the council, the court or the authority that issued the penalty, holds the instruction and can withdraw it. National standards place the proportionality expectation on that side of the relationship: "Creditors should act proportionately when seeking to recover debt, taking into account debtors' circumstances." Asking the creditor to recall the account from enforcement is the request most likely to change the outcome, and it is the one most people never make.

Send the same figures to all three. It costs nothing and it removes the "we never received it" answer.

If the offer is turned down

A refusal is not unlawful and it is not the end of the route, but the next steps are specific enough to need their own page.

Read what to do when a bailiff refuses your payment plan. In outline: the creditor can recall the account or instruct the firm to accept the arrangement; on a County Court judgment an application on form N245 asks a judge to suspend the warrant and set instalments, because under CPR 83.7 the court may stay execution where it is satisfied that the applicant "is unable from any reason to pay the money"; and where the debts are unaffordable in principle rather than badly timed, the answer is debt advice rather than a better negotiation.

Signing a controlled goods agreement to pay by instalments

Most instalment arrangements made at a doorstep are recorded as a controlled goods agreement, and people sign them without being told what the signature changes.

Entering into one is one of the four ways an enforcement agent may take control of goods under paragraph 13 of Schedule 12. The goods stay in your home, and you agree to pay by instalments while the agent retains control of them.

Regulation 15 requires the agreement to be in writing and signed, to list the goods with enough description to identify them, including the make, model and registration of any vehicle, and to set out "the terms of the arrangement entered into between the enforcement agent and the debtor for the repayment, by the debtor, of the sum outstanding." You must be given a copy at the time you sign. If you were not given one, ask for it in writing.

Regulation 14 limits who may sign: the debtor, someone aged 18 or over authorised by the debtor, or a person in apparent authority on the premises. A child cannot sign one.

Two consequences follow from breaching it, and both are worse than most people expect.

First, entry. Paragraph 19A of Schedule 12 applies only where all three of its conditions are met: the agent "has power to enter the premises under paragraph 16", the agent has taken control by entering into a controlled goods agreement, and the debtor "has failed to comply with any provision" of it. The first condition matters, a breach on its own does not create a power to force entry where no power to enter existed. Where paragraph 19A applies, paragraph 17 permits an agent to "use reasonable force to enter premises". This is the route by which an arrangement made to avoid a forced entry can create one.

Second, time. Regulation 9 normally bars an agent from taking control of goods more than 12 months after the date of the notice of enforcement. Where a repayment arrangement is entered into after that notice and the debtor breaches it, the 12 months "begins with the date of the debtor's breach". Letting an arrangement lapse restarts the clock rather than running it down.

The practical rule is short: never agree to an amount you cannot sustain, and if a payment is going to be missed, say so before the date rather than after. See our guide to controlled goods agreements for what else the signature affects.

Paying the council or creditor direct, and what that does not end

People often pay the council instead of the enforcement firm, on the reasonable assumption that paying the creditor removes the reason for the enforcement. It is not that simple, and the gap is where extra fees are generated.

The amount the enforcement power is being exercised for is not only the original debt. Paragraph 50 of Schedule 12 defines the amount outstanding as the sum of the unpaid debt, or an amount the creditor agrees to accept in full satisfaction of it, and any amounts recoverable out of proceeds in respect of costs. Paying the original balance to the council therefore leaves the fees outstanding, and the power remains exercisable for them.

Timing is the second problem. Paragraph 59 provides that an enforcement agent is not liable for a step taken "unless he had notice, when the step was taken, that the amount outstanding had been paid in full", and that a person has notice if they would have found it out "if he had made reasonable enquiries". A payment sitting unprocessed in a council system is not the same as notice to the agent.

So if you do pay the creditor direct: tell the enforcement firm in writing the same day, quote their reference as well as the council's, keep the receipt, and ask the council in writing to confirm to the firm that the account is settled and to recall it. Ask specifically what remains outstanding after the payment, in figures.

Where a council does agree to take an account back, that ends the enforcement instruction. Where it does not, the account stays with the firm and the fees stay with the account. Our council tax bailiffs guide covers the recall request in the council tax context specifically.

Enforcement fees when the debt is paid

Fees are recovered from what you pay, not added neatly at the end, and that changes how a partial payment behaves.

Where the money recovered is not enough to cover both the debt and the fees, regulation 13 of the Fees Regulations sets the order. The compliance fee is recovered first, after the payment required by paragraph (2), and what is left is then applied "pro rata in payment of ... (a) the sum to be recovered, and (b) any remaining amounts recoverable in respect of fees and disbursements". Part of each payment goes to the firm rather than to the debt, which is why a balance falls more slowly than people expect.

Three limits are worth knowing.

Where several enforcement powers are covered by the same instructions, regulation 11 allows the compliance fee for each power, but the fixed fee for each later stage "may be recovered only once regardless of the number of enforcement powers to which the instructions relate." Several liability orders enforced together should not produce several £247 charges.

Where the debtor is a vulnerable person, regulation 12 makes the enforcement stage fee unrecoverable unless the agent has, before removing goods taken into control, given the debtor "an adequate opportunity to get assistance and advice in relation to the exercise of the enforcement power."

And regulation 17 provides that an agent "may not recover fees or disbursements from the debtor in relation to any stage of enforcement undertaken at a time when the relevant enforcement power has ceased to be exercisable."

If the figures do not match the scale, the dispute has a formal route. Regulation 16 provides that on application in accordance with rules of court, "any dispute regarding the amount recoverable under these Regulations is to be determined by the court." See challenging bailiff fees and, for the scale itself, bailiff fees.

Breathing Space is a protection, not a payment option

This section exists because the confusion is common and expensive.

A Breathing Space moratorium under the Debt Respite Scheme is not a way of paying. It is a statutory period during which specified creditor action is prohibited, obtained through an FCA-authorised debt adviser rather than negotiated with a creditor. It does not reduce the debt, and the debt is still owed at the end of it.

What it stops is defined. Under regulation 12, an enforcement agent appointed in relation to a moratorium debt who knows of the moratorium must not give notice of enforcement, must not visit for the purpose of taking control of goods, must not take control of goods, and must not sell goods unless they were already in the agent's possession. Fees, penalties and charges relating to the storage of goods seized before the moratorium and accruing during it cannot be required afterwards either. Regulation 7 separately prevents a creditor from charging interest or fees accruing during the period, or taking enforcement action.

Two limits decide whether it applies to you. Regulation 5 excludes certain debts, including "any liability in respect of a fine imposed by a court for an offence", so a magistrates' court fine is not covered. And regulation 4 states that "a debt advice provider must not charge a debtor a fee in connection with a moratorium", which is a useful test of who you are talking to.

Read Breathing Space and bailiffs before deciding whether it fits.

Free independent debt advice

Your notice of enforcement was required to tell you that free advice exists. It is worth using for three reasons that are specific rather than general.

A free adviser can produce the income and expenditure statement that makes an offer credible. A free adviser can request the extension that takes the notice period from 14 to 28 clear days, unless the debt is a non-eligible business debt. And only an authorised debt adviser can start a Breathing Space moratorium.

Citizens Advice, National Debtline, StepChange and MoneyHelper are free, independent and do not charge for any of this.

When the answer is a debt solution rather than a payment plan

If the total of your debts cannot be repaid from what is left after essential costs, no instalment arrangement will hold, and agreeing one buys a few months at the price of a breach.

Formal options include a Debt Relief Order, an individual voluntary arrangement and bankruptcy. Each has eligibility limits, costs and consequences, and each affects enforcement differently. An informal debt management plan does not carry legal protection from enforcement at all.

Our guide to debt solutions sets out which ones actually stop bailiffs.

Paying a named enforcement firm

The rules above are the same whichever firm is collecting, because the fee scale and the notice periods are set by regulation rather than by the company. What differs is the payment channel, the minimum instalment the firm's client will accept, and how an arrangement is set up.

• Bristow & Sutor payment plans
• CDER Group payment plans
• Marston Recovery payment plans
• Newlyn payment plans
• Rundles payment plans

If the amount being demanded looks wrong, or you do not accept the debt at all, that is a different question. Start with how to challenge a bailiff debt you do not owe.