Court Enforcement Services: Fees, Writs and Force Entry

Before anything else on this page can help, find the operative words on your paperwork, writ of control, CRAR, or writ of possession, because each one leads somewhere different.

Which document has CES sent you?

The firm's own website lists its caseload as County Court judgments over £600, CRAR, service charge and insurance arrears, lease forfeiture, residential eviction, trespasser and squatter removal, employment tribunal awards, European and international orders, and utilities debt. That breadth is exactly why identifying your document matters first.

Who are Court Enforcement Services?

Court Enforcement Services Ltd, company number 08397825, was incorporated on 11 February 2013 and has its registered office at 3rd Floor, 10 Lloyd's Avenue, London, EC3N 3AJ. Companies House records its business classification as 84230, justice and judicial activities. Casework correspondence goes elsewhere: the firm directs post to PO Box 13230, Harlow, Essex CM20 9UH, so a Harlow postmark on a London-registered company is normal here rather than suspicious.

Four directors currently sit on the board: Paul Anthony Caddy, Alan Smith, Nicholas Sean Tubbs and Tom Frans Vanoverschelde. The first two also appear on the High Court Enforcement Officers Association member directory as the firm's authorised High Court Enforcement Officers, the named individuals to whom writs are formally addressed. CES has held Enforcement Conduct Board accreditation since October 2023, and both listings can be checked directly with the HCEOA and the ECB.

By its own account, the firm has issued more than 265,000 writs, recovered over £215 million, and took Enforcement Business of the Year at the 2025 CICM British Credit Awards. Those are marketing statements rather than register entries, and they are reported here as the company's description of itself.

The CDER connection: shared owners, several names

Since 4 September 2018 the register has shown CDER Group UK Limited, company number 09903291, holding 75% or more of CES's shares and voting rights; before that date the company had filed a statement that it had no registrable controller. The parent has been renamed repeatedly since its 2015 incorporation as Hamsard 3393 Limited: J.B.W. Topco, then J.B.W. Group, then CDER Group International, and from October 2025 CDER Group UK Limited. Older announcements crediting "JBW Group" with the 2018 acquisition describe the same entity under an earlier name.

The same holding company sits above Rundle & Co. Limited, and Mr Tubbs and Mr Vanoverschelde serve on both boards, which explains why some households hear from CES and Rundles in the same year: the group splits High Court work from council tax and traffic work. Our CDER Group profile covers a related company in the same family. Through all the renaming, the one identifier that never moves is the company number, which is what to match a letter against.

Bailiff, enforcement agent or debt collector?

The people CES send out are enforcement agents operating under a High Court Enforcement Officer's authority, which is the modern form of what most people still call a bailiff. An ordinary collection agency writes and telephones; it cannot cross a threshold or list goods, and it would need to sue and win before that changed. For writ of control and CRAR cases, CES work within Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Their possession caseload runs on different authority, covered further down. Unsure what you have received? Start with bailiffs and debt collectors.

The £600 and £5,000 thresholds

Not every judgment can become a High Court writ. Article 8 of the High Court and County Courts Jurisdiction Order 1991, as amended, draws the lines for a money judgment:

Check that final row before anything else if your debt began as a credit card, loan or other regulated credit product. Paragraph (1A) of article 8 keeps such judgments in the County Court however large they grow, so size alone never makes them High Court business. A CES writ enforcing what you believe is regulated credit is a reason to dig out the original agreement and take advice quickly. The wider transfer-up process is covered in our High Court enforcement officers guide.

Tribunal awards and judgments from abroad

An employment tribunal award appears in CES's advertised services, and it reaches them by a fixed route: registration as a County Court judgment, then transfer up under the same article 8 thresholds. Nothing about the employment origin makes the enforcement harsher or gentler. A European or other foreign judgment follows a parallel logic: once recognised and registered by the courts of England and Wales, it becomes an ordinary writ of control and everything on this page applies to it normally.

CRAR: rent owed on business premises

Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery belongs exclusively to a commercial landlord pursuing a business tenant. It has no application to anyone who occupies premises purely as a home, whatever a letter implies. Two statutory conditions decide most arguments: section 74 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 requires the lease to be evidenced in writing, and section 77, read with regulation 52 of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, requires at least seven days' rent to be outstanding both at the notice and again when goods are first taken into control. Our Dukes Bailiffs profile walks through CRAR's conditions at greater length.

Eviction work under a writ of possession

Residential eviction and trespasser removal sit in CES's service list, but they are enforced under a writ of possession: an order that someone give up land or premises, not an order to pay money. Its timescales, notice requirements and rules on force are its own. If that phrase appears on your document, put this page's fee tables and entry rules aside and get advice specific to possession proceedings.

The High Court fee scale, stage by stage

Writ of control fees come from the High Court scale, a different tariff from the one used for council tax or other county-court-only work:

The scale above governs instructions taken on from 1 May 2026; a writ that predates it may still run on the earlier figures, so the instruction date matters when auditing a bill. Two details reward attention. The percentage trigger is £1,200 here, lower than the £1,900 used in county-court-only work. And the £520 second enforcement fee has statutory preconditions of its own, so if it appears on your account, ask CES in writing which event, on which date, moved the case to that stage.

Several writs at once: what regulation 11 allows

Regulation 11 of the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 lets the £79 compliance fee repeat for every enforcement power held, but confines the enforcement stage fee and the sale fee to a single charge whenever the writs can reasonably be dealt with together. An account showing those larger fees multiplied across writs enforced on one visit is worth disputing in writing.

Can Court Enforcement Services force entry?

Under an ordinary writ of control, a first visit to a home gives no right to break in. What the law allows is peaceable entry: a door somebody opens, or one already unlocked. Keeping the door shut is lawful, carries no penalty, and cannot be punished with extra fees beyond those the visit itself triggers.

A shut door does not end the matter, though. An agent kept outside can still clamp or remove a vehicle on the drive or street, and can return on another day.

Force has two narrow statutory openings. Paragraph 18A of Schedule 12 permits reasonable force to enter premises where the debtor trades or carries on business, provided the debt is not a traffic contravention one; it is aimed at workplaces, not homes. Paragraph 19A permits reasonable force to re-enter where a controlled goods agreement was made and then broken. Neither touches an ordinary first visit to a private home, and neither has anything to do with possession work, which runs on its own rules. The full picture is in when bailiffs can force entry.

What CES agents can and cannot take

Control can only be taken of the debtor's own goods. A partner's laptop, a housemate's television or, at business premises, a supplier's stock or a finance company's equipment is out of bounds, though expect to prove ownership with documents rather than assertions.

Regulation 4 of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 then puts a floor under everything else. Clothes and bedding, the appliances a household depends on, medicines and care equipment, items needed to look after a child or an older or disabled person, assistance dogs and family pets are all off limits, and so is a vehicle displaying a valid disabled person's badge. Work tools are protected too, but only to a combined value of £1,350.

Cars attract attention because they can be dealt with from the street. Ownership settles most of these disputes: Motability vehicles are leased, a car on hire purchase or PCP typically remains the finance company's until the last payment, and a household member's car is simply not the debtor's. Details in what bailiffs can take and can bailiffs take my car.

Controlled goods agreements with CES

Where the debt is enforceable and genuinely yours, the usual route to instalments is a controlled goods agreement: named items stay put while payments continue. Read the inventory line by line before signing. Anything that is not yours, and anything exempt, should come off it, and the balance and fee stages should reconcile against the tables above. What signing commits you to is set out in controlled goods agreements.

Treat the agreement's payment dates as harder deadlines than ordinary bills, because default is precisely what unlocks the paragraph 19A re-entry power. If a payment is going to be missed, contact CES beforehand rather than after.

When the numbers do not stretch

Tell them early, and show your working. An offer resting on an honest income and expenditure statement is treated seriously; a bare figure is not. National Debtline, StepChange and Citizens Advice will all help you build one at no cost.

Challenging the balance or the judgment behind it

CES enforce what they are instructed to enforce. They cannot reopen the judgment, revisit a tribunal's award, or rewrite a rent account; those corrections belong to the court, the tribunal or the creditor. So aim the substantive dispute at the claimant who obtained the judgment, and in parallel ask CES for the writ reference, the issuing court and date, the judgment enforced, and an itemised balance with every fee shown. Put on record, in writing, that the sum is disputed and where the dispute has been raised.

Vulnerability: what to tell CES and when

As early as possible, and in writing. There is no fixed qualifying list: pregnancy, serious or mental illness, disability, recent bereavement, advanced age, difficulty with English or with reading, and a household in crisis all count, alone or in combination. What follows disclosure can be more time, changed communication methods, a gentler payment profile or a pause. The debt survives; the manner of collection is what changes.

Is the letter really from CES?

Given the group's rotating parent-company names, brand recognition is a weak test here. The strong one is the writ: a reference number and an issuing court that you can verify with the court itself. The firm's own published debtor line is 0343 504 1607 and its enquiries address is enq@courtenforcementservices.co.uk; contact found independently beats any number printed on a surprising letter. Before money moves, confirm the writ it settles, the stage reached and the fees included, take a reference, and keep the receipt. An agent at the door can be paid without being let in.

Taking a complaint beyond CES

The firm's published procedure, at courtenforcementservices.co.uk, promises acknowledgement within 2 working days, an informal answer within 5, and a formal investigation inside 20, with complaints going to customer.care@courtenforcementservices.co.uk. For events from 1 January 2025, an unresolved complaint can then go to the Enforcement Conduct Board, within the longer of three months from when you could reasonably have known of the issue or one month from the firm's final response. An individual agent's certificate is challenged separately, at the County Court that granted it. Throughout, keep dates, copies, photographs and names.

First steps with a CES letter

1. Find the operative words: writ of control, CRAR or writ of possession. Everything else depends on this.
2. Possession document? Set this page aside and get eviction-specific advice today.
3. Writ of control or CRAR? Audit the stage and fees against the tables above, including regulation 11 if several writs are involved.
4. Dispute the judgment or the account with the claimant and the court, not just the enforcement firm.
5. Debt right but unaffordable? Build an income and expenditure statement and put a workable offer.
6. Any vulnerability in the household goes to CES in writing, now.
7. If a car is on finance, leased or someone else's, gather that paperwork before the first visit.