Controlled Goods Agreement: What Signing Actually Changes

It is presented as the reasonable option, and often it is. But signing changes your legal position in a way that is rarely explained at the doorstep, and the change only becomes visible if you later miss a payment.

This page sets out what the agreement does, what it must contain, and the one consequence worth understanding before you sign anything.

This page describes England and Wales, where signing a controlled goods agreement is what creates the re-entry power discussed below. Scotland has no controlled goods agreement, and no comparable route into a home either: the nearest procedure, attachment, cannot reach goods kept inside a dwelling at all without a separate sheriff-granted exceptional attachment order. See attachment in Scotland.

What it actually does

When an agent takes control of goods, the goods come under the court's control even though they remain physically with you.

You keep using them. You must not sell, give away, damage or dispose of them. And the agent has a legal interest in them until the debt and the fees are cleared.

So it is not an ordinary payment plan. It is a payment plan secured on your possessions.

The consequence people are not told about

This is the single most important thing on this page.

For most civil debts, council tax, parking penalties and County Court judgments, an enforcement agent may not force entry to a home on a first visit: entry must be peaceable, through a door you open or leave unlocked, and you are not obliged to open it. That is not universal, and it does not apply to magistrates' court fines, where paragraph 18 of Schedule 12 is itself a gateway to force.

Signing a controlled goods agreement and then breaching it removes that protection.

Under paragraph 17 of Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, an agent may use reasonable force to enter where paragraph 18, 18A, 19 or 19A applies. Paragraph 19A applies where the agent had power to enter, took control of goods by entering into a controlled goods agreement, and the debtor has failed to comply with it. One large council tax contractor's published guidance on this gateway is compared with the law in Bristow & Sutor's force-entry policy.

So the position before and after a breach is genuinely different:

That is not a reason never to sign. An affordable agreement you keep to is usually a better outcome than a removal. It is a reason to be sure the payments are ones you can actually maintain, and to make contact before a payment fails rather than after.

Breaching also restarts the clock

There is a second consequence, and it works in the opposite direction to what most people assume.

Under regulation 9(2) of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, where an agent entered into a repayment arrangement after giving notice of enforcement and the debtor breaches it, the 12-month period for taking control of goods begins again with the date of the breach.

So allowing an arrangement to lapse in the hope that the warrant simply expires does the opposite: it resets the clock rather than running it down.

Who is allowed to sign

Regulation 14 is specific, and it is worth checking against what actually happened.

A controlled goods agreement may only be entered into by an enforcement agent and:

• a debtor who is not a child
• a person aged 18 or over authorised by the debtor to sign on their behalf
• a person in apparent authority who is on the premises

A child cannot sign one. If an agent obtained a signature from someone under 18, that is a plain breach of regulation 14 and should be raised in writing immediately.

"Apparent authority" is narrower than it sounds and does not mean anybody who happens to answer the door. If an agreement was signed by a lodger, a visitor or a young person in the house, that is worth challenging.

What the agreement must contain

Regulation 15 sets out the required contents, and this is where readers gain real leverage, because the list is precise and easy to check.

The agreement must be in writing and signed by the enforcement agent and by the person entering into it. It must contain:

• your name and address
• the reference number or numbers and the date of the agreement
• the names of the persons entering into it
• a contact telephone number and address, with the days and hours the agent or their office can be contacted
• a list of the goods taken into control, described well enough for you to identify them, including where applicable the manufacturer, model and serial number, and for a vehicle the manufacturer, model, colour and registration mark
• the terms of the repayment arrangement

You must be given a copy at the time. Regulation 15(4) requires the agent, *"at the time of entering into the agreement"*, to give a copy of the signed agreement to the person who signed it.

Where somebody else signed on your behalf or in apparent authority, regulation 15(5) requires a copy to be provided to you as well, either left in a conspicuous place on the premises or delivered in a sealed envelope.

Check the inventory before you sign

Once an item is listed, disputing it later is harder. Five checks, all of which take a minute at the door:

Is every item actually yours? Goods belonging to a partner, an adult child, a lodger or an employer are not the debtor's goods and should not be listed. Say so at the time and follow up in writing with evidence.

Is anything exempt? Clothing, bedding and household equipment reasonably required for basic domestic needs, items for medical care or the care of a child, disabled or older person, domestic pets and assistance dogs, and a vehicle displaying a valid disabled person's badge are all exempt. Tools and equipment needed for your own work are exempt only up to £1,350 in aggregate.

Is a vehicle listed that is not yours to give? A Motability vehicle is leased. A car on hire purchase or PCP belongs to the finance company until the final payment.

Are the valuations credible? Household goods sold at auction realise far less than people expect, so an inflated valuation misleads you about how much the sale would actually clear.

Are the balance and fees right? Check the fee stages against the statutory scale.

If something is wrong, do not sign and then argue. Raise it before signing, and if the agent proceeds anyway, record what happened and complain in writing the same day.

What it costs

The statutory fee scale for instructions under the rules in force from 1 May 2026:

If an agreement is being signed, an agent has attended and the £247 has already attached. The scale is fixed by regulation and identical for every enforcement firm, so it is not negotiable and not something a firm can add to.

How goods get taken into control in the first place

A controlled goods agreement is only one of the ways this can happen, and knowing the alternatives explains why an agent offers it.

Under paragraph 13(1) of Schedule 12, an agent may take control of goods by securing them on the premises where they are found, by securing them on a highway, by removing them and securing them elsewhere, or by entering into a controlled goods agreement.

The agreement is the only one of those four that leaves the goods with you and in use. That is why it is offered, and why it is usually preferable to the alternatives if the payments are genuinely affordable.

What happens to the goods while the agreement runs

They stay with you and you keep using them normally. What changes is what you may do with them.

You must not sell, gift, lend out, scrap or dispose of any listed item, and you must not allow it to be damaged or removed. Interfering with controlled goods is a serious step that can amount to an offence, and it will undermine every other argument you have.

If a listed item genuinely needs to be replaced, for example a washing machine that fails, tell the enforcement agent in writing before disposing of it and ask for the inventory to be amended.

If you move house, tell them. Taking controlled goods to a new address without saying so is exactly the situation that leads to the powers described above being used.

If an agent returns while the agreement is being kept

An agreement kept to should not produce further visits about the same debt.

If an agent attends anyway, ask what stage they say the case is at and on what basis, and ask for it in writing. Check your payment record against their figures, because a payment credited to the wrong reference is a common cause.

Do not let anyone in on the assumption that the agreement obliges you to. It does not, while you are complying with it.

What happens if goods are eventually removed

Removal is not sale, and there is normally a gap between them, generally a minimum of seven clear days.

Controlled goods must be sold for the best price that can reasonably be obtained, and a valuation must be made or obtained. Where the agent makes it, regulation 35 requires it to be in writing and signed, to give the agent's name, reference numbers and date, and a copy must be provided to you and any co-owner. Where the agent obtains it instead, they must instruct only a qualified, independent valuer.

Ask for the written valuation. Household goods and vehicles are the items most often undervalued.

Sale proceeds go first to the debt and the recoverable costs of enforcement, and any surplus must be returned to you. Ask for a closing statement showing how the money was allocated.

Vulnerability

If your circumstances make an agreement harder to understand or to keep to, say so in writing, to the agent, the firm and the creditor.

Vulnerability is assessed on circumstances rather than a checklist: serious physical or mental illness, disability, bereavement, pregnancy, age-related difficulty, language or literacy barriers, recent trauma and household crisis can all be relevant, and more than one often applies at once.

The Ministry of Justice national standards expect creditors to *"act proportionately when seeking to recover debt, taking into account debtors' circumstances"*, and where a debtor is identified as vulnerable, creditors *"should be prepared to take control of the case, at any time, if necessary."*

That last point is the useful one: the outcome worth asking for is often that the creditor takes the case back, not that the agent softens the terms.

Council tax, penalties and judgments: does it differ?

The agreement mechanics are the same whatever the debt, because they come from the same Schedule 12 framework and the same fee scale. What differs is who you escalate to and what other remedies exist.

Council tax. The council instructs the agent and can recall the account. Where the liability order itself is wrong, that is a stronger argument than anything about the agreement. See liability orders.

Parking and traffic penalties. The separate statutory challenge route runs on its own timetable. For an ordinary council parking penalty anywhere in England, or a council bus-lane or moving-traffic penalty outside London, the usual route is a witness statement on form TE9, with TE7 if it is late. For a TfL Congestion Charge, LEZ or ULEZ penalty, the statutory-declaration route uses PE3, with PE2 if late. London-borough or TfL bus-lane and moving-traffic cases sit under separate London legislation, so check the form enclosed with the order rather than assuming either route. A successful statement or declaration removes the order for recovery and the warrant with it. See which form applies.

County Court judgments. You can apply on form N245 to suspend the warrant and vary the instalments, and under CPR 83.7 the court may stay execution where you are unable to pay. A judge can impose terms an agent would not agree to. See CCJs and bailiffs.

If you cannot keep up the payments

Contact the enforcement agent before the payment is missed. That is a materially different conversation from the one after a default, for the two reasons set out above.

Explain what has changed, offer what you can genuinely sustain, and send an updated income and expenditure statement. Ask in writing whether enforcement is on hold while they consider it.

If the arrangement was never affordable, go to the creditor as well. On a council tax debt the council can recall the account; on a County Court judgment you can apply on form N245 to suspend the warrant and vary the instalments, and under CPR 83.7 a judge can impose terms an agent would refuse.

If the underlying problem is that the debts are unaffordable in principle, a Breathing Space moratorium pauses enforcement for 60 days. Note the limit: goods already in the agent's possession can still be sold, though goods listed on an agreement and still in your home are not in their possession in that sense.

What if you refuse to sign?

You are not obliged to sign, and refusing is not an offence.

What follows depends on whether the agent has already got in. If they are outside and you have not let them in, they cannot take goods from inside the property and the practical risk is to anything accessible outside, most commonly a vehicle. If they are inside, having entered peaceably, they may take control by other means, including securing goods on the premises or removing them.

So refusal is not automatically the safer choice. The realistic comparison is between an affordable agreement and the alternative in your specific situation, and if a vehicle is on the drive that alternative may be worse.

What is always worth doing is refusing to sign an inventory that is wrong, as opposed to refusing on principle. Those are different decisions.

If goods were listed without you signing

An agent can take control of goods without an agreement, by securing or removing them. That is lawful. What they cannot do is call it a controlled goods agreement.

If you have paperwork describing goods as controlled but nobody signed anything, ask in writing for a copy of the signed agreement and the date it was made. If none exists, the agent has taken control by some other route, and the documents that then matter are the inventory and the notice after taking control of goods, not an agreement.

Establishing which of the four routes was used tells you which rules apply and which documents you are entitled to.

What happens next, step by step

1. You keep to the payments. Nothing further should happen on that debt.
2. A payment is missed. The agent may treat the agreement as breached, which engages paragraph 19A and restarts the regulation 9 clock.
3. The agent may re-attend, and after a breach may use reasonable force to enter.
4. Goods may be removed, at which point the sale fee of £116 attaches.
5. A valuation is made or obtained, and you are entitled to a written copy.
6. Sale follows, normally not less than seven clear days after removal.
7. Proceeds are applied to the debt and recoverable costs, with any surplus returned to you.

The point of setting it out that way is that every step after the first is avoidable, and the cheapest intervention is always the earliest one.

Your options now

If you have not signed yet, check the inventory against the five points above and be honest with yourself about the instalment. An agreement you cannot keep is worse than no agreement.

If you have signed and are keeping to it, keep proof of every payment and do not dispose of any listed item.

If a payment is about to fail, contact the agent today, in writing, with revised figures, before it fails.

If you have already breached, act immediately: contact the agent, and consider the creditor route and, for a judgment debt, an N245 application.

If the agreement is defective, complain in writing citing the regulation, and copy the creditor.

If the debts are unaffordable overall, get free debt advice and consider Breathing Space rather than agreeing terms you cannot maintain.

If you never signed anything

An agent cannot create a controlled goods agreement by leaving paperwork. It must be in writing and signed by both the agent and a person entitled to sign under regulation 14.

If you have received documents describing goods as "controlled" but nobody signed anything, ask in writing for a copy of the signed agreement and the date it was made. If none exists, say so and ask them to correct their records.

What to do if the agreement is defective

Set out the specific failure rather than a general complaint. Defects worth raising include:

• signed by somebody under 18, contrary to regulation 14
• no copy given at the time, contrary to regulation 15(4)
• goods listed that are exempt or belong to somebody else
• an inventory too vague to identify the goods, without the serial numbers or vehicle details regulation 15(3)(e) requires
• no signature from the enforcement agent
• repayment terms not recorded on the agreement

Complain to the enforcement firm first, in writing, citing the regulation. Then to the creditor, which holds the instruction and can recall the case. Then, for a private firm, to the Enforcement Conduct Board; for a County Court enforcement agent, to HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

Keep photographs of the paperwork and note dates and times.