Walker Love: An Independent Firm of Sheriff Officers

Most people who reach this page have been contacted by someone identifying themselves as Walker Love and want to know who that actually is before deciding anything.

Who are Walker Love?

Walker Love is the trading name of W L Recoveries Limited, registered at Companies House under company number SC084578, incorporated on 12 September 1983, with its registered office at 16 Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow, G1 3AB. Check the number on Companies House rather than the trading name alone, because the register shows the same company operating under four different names since 1983: Strathclyde Credit Services Limited until 1999, then George Walker & Co. (Credit Consultants) Ltd until 2014, then Walker Love Recoveries Limited until 2019, and W L Recoveries Limited since. Procurement and council documents often lag behind a company's current legal name, and a small number still name the supplier as "George Walker & Co t/a Walker Love", which is an out of date legal name rather than a different company.

The persons with significant control filing names an individual, David Allan Walker, holding between 25% and 50% of the shares, notified 1 January 2019, with no corporate parent recorded. That is worth stating plainly because Scotland's two largest firms of sheriff officers, Scott & Co and Stirling Park, are each the Scottish arm of a wider enforcement group with its own profile elsewhere on this site. Walker Love's own register entry shows no equivalent relationship, and the company describes itself as a family business now in its third generation, though that particular description is the firm's own claim about itself rather than something the register states.

Sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms

Walker Love's own site describes the firm as holding commissions as sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms across all six Scottish sheriffdoms, working from eight offices. That description comes from the firm's own marketing rather than an independently checked commission register, so it is usually safer to treat the office count and sheriffdom coverage as the company's own claim rather than a verified fact.

Sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms are officers of court, acting under a commission granted by the courts, not a private enforcement business acting on its own authority. If you have been told that bailiffs are on their way, that is the English and Welsh term for a different role under different law; in Scotland the correct term is sheriff officer or messenger-at-arms, and treating the two as interchangeable can send you looking for the wrong rights and the wrong process.

Because of that, Walker Love is not certificated under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, is not accredited by the Enforcement Conduct Board, which has no jurisdiction in Scotland, and does not charge under the Taking Control of Goods fee scale used in England and Wales. What Walker Love actually carries out is diligence, a different family of procedures under Scots law. Sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms in Scotland explains how diligence works in full, and this page does not repeat it.

Which councils Walker Love works for

The strongest evidence for any Walker Love council relationship comes directly from Inverclyde Council's own website, which states that "Walker Love is the council's Sheriff Officer and Debt Recovery Partner from 1st April 2026", replacing its previous supplier, Alex M Adamson, whose Inverclyde instruction ended on 31 March 2026. The council's own page states that anyone previously dealt with by Alex M Adamson on an Inverclyde case should have received a changeover letter from Walker Love.

Walker Love also appears in a City of Edinburgh Council contract award notice, published 9 January 2026, for a Sheriff Officer Services framework, alongside Scott & Co, the other of Scotland's two largest sheriff officer firms. Treat this as weaker evidence than Inverclyde's: the notice itself returned an access error when checked directly, so this account is drawn from a summary of its contents rather than the full document, and the notice names the supplier under the outdated trading name "George Walker & Co t/a Walker Love" rather than its current legal name. The Edinburgh relationship is reported rather than independently confirmed to the same standard as Inverclyde's.

No other council instruction for Walker Love has been independently verified for this page. If you have a case with a different Scottish council and have been told Walker Love is instructed, check that council's own website or contact it directly rather than relying on this page, a letter, or a search result. In practice, a council's own current page is usually the safest way to confirm which firm it now instructs, since a relationship like this one can change without much public notice, as Inverclyde's own switch away from Alex M Adamson shows.

What else Walker Love do

Beyond council instructions, Walker Love's own site describes general debt recovery, citation and diligence work for courts and private creditors, tracing and investigation work for businesses and third sector organisations, and an international recovery network it brands Connexx. None of that changes how diligence itself works. The procedures, time limits and protections are the same family of Scots law covered on sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms in Scotland, attachment and exceptional attachment orders and earnings and bank arrestment, whichever firm happens to be carrying it out.

How sheriff officers are regulated, and how to complain

There is no single Scottish regulator equivalent to the Enforcement Conduct Board. Three separate channels exist instead. The Society of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers, known as SMASO, is the professional body covering the whole of Scotland, but it describes its own role as representative rather than regulatory, and officer commissions come from the courts rather than from SMASO itself, so it should not be treated as Scotland's version of the Enforcement Conduct Board. Because sheriff officers are privately employed, a complaint about the firm's own service can go to Walker Love directly. And because the underlying authority is a court commission, a complaint about the conduct of the diligence itself may need to go in writing to the Sheriff Principal, through the local sheriff court, since that judicial office actually holds oversight of the commission. mygov.scot's own guidance sets out which route fits which kind of complaint.

If Walker Love has contacted you

Ask for the officer's name, which firm they work for, and which court granted the commission they are acting under, and ask what diligence has actually been instructed rather than assuming a letter and an officer at the door are the same stage. Check the underlying document, whether that is a charge for payment or a court decree, before assuming any diligence can lawfully proceed. If the case is a council tax matter for Inverclyde, the council's own website confirms the Walker Love relationship directly; for any other council, check its own website rather than taking a caller's word for it. If you believe the debt is wrong, raise it with the creditor or council that instructed Walker Love, since Walker Love has no authority to rewrite an account it did not create. If money is genuinely short or your circumstances are vulnerable, put that in writing now, and see sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms in Scotland for the options, including a time to pay order and the Debt Arrangement Scheme, that can apply regardless of which firm is instructed.

Before you respond: a short checklist

1. Get the officer's name, the firm, and which court granted their commission.
2. Check the underlying charge for payment or decree, not just the letter.
3. If it is a council tax case, check the council's own website for the firm it currently instructs.
4. Debt wrong? Raise it with the creditor or council directly, in writing.
5. Struggling to pay? Put that in writing now rather than waiting.
6. Complaint about conduct? Work out whether it concerns the firm's service or the diligence itself, since those go to different places.