Penham Excel: Are They Legitimate, and How Do You Pay Them?

It will be council tax, business rates, an unpaid parking or traffic penalty, or commercial rent, and each of those carries its own entry rules and its own way of pushing back.

Who are Penham Excel?

Penham Excel is the trading style of Penham Excel Limited, a company on the Companies House register under number 03858546. It was incorporated on 13 October 1999, originally as Excel Financial Services Limited, and took its present name a few months later in February 2000. Its registered office is at 59-61 Charlotte Street, St Pauls Square, Birmingham, B3 1PX, while the working office recorded on the CIVEA members' register is Ashley House, Siemens Road, Stafford, ST17 4DT. The company is filed under SIC code 82990, a catch-all "other business support service activities" heading rather than anything specific to enforcement.

Control rests with the Hammonds family. The public register records Hammonds Group Limited owning 75% or more of the shares and voting rights, with Cedric Hammonds and Philip Richard Hammonds each able to appoint or remove directors, all logged in October 2016. Penham Excel presents itself as one arm of the Hammonds Group of Companies, a family firm it dates to 1972, which also runs a vehicle logistics business, Birway Garage. The firm states it holds ISO 9001:2015 certification through that group.

Two memberships can be checked without taking the company's own word for them. Penham Excel belongs to the Civil Enforcement Association (CIVEA), and it held accreditation from the Enforcement Conduct Board from October 2023. When the ECB's accredited firms directory was checked on 22 September 2026, however, Penham Excel was no longer listed, and its member page had been removed. CIVEA and the ECB each keep their own records, so check the current position directly rather than relying on a letterhead or on this page.

Bailiff, enforcement agent, or debt collector?

For the debts on this page, Penham Excel act as enforcement agents, which is what most people mean when they say "bailiff." The distinction from a debt collector is not cosmetic. A collection agency can write, phone and ask, but it cannot cross your threshold or remove a single item without first suing you and winning; an enforcement agent already has that step behind it.

Where Penham Excel are chasing council tax, rates or a penalty, a court, tribunal or the Traffic Enforcement Centre has already granted the power they rely on. It comes from Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the framework that lets an agent take control of goods, apply fixed statutory fees, and, in a small set of defined situations, use reasonable force. Unsure which sort of letter you are holding? Our note on bailiffs and debt collectors draws the line.

The debts Penham Excel chase

Beyond enforcement, the company advertises work that has nothing to do with taking control of goods: serving court documents, clearing travellers and squatters from land, carrying out repossessions, and tracing and investigation. Those run on separate instructions under separate law, and neither the fee scale nor the entry rules set out below reaches them.

Council tax and rates: how a case begins

A council tax debt reaches enforcement only after the council has secured a liability order from the magistrates' court, and business rates travel the identical road. Neither order is a key to your front door; each is simply what switches on the taking-control-of-goods process.

Timing carries a limit worth knowing. Under regulation 34(3) of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, a council cannot even apply for a liability order once six years have passed since the money fell due. That bites on the council's application, not on an order already made, so it will rarely help once a file has landed with Penham Excel.

After a case transfers, councils usually point you back to the agent rather than taking money at the counter. A council keeps the option of pulling a case back, most realistically where vulnerability is documented, but that is a favour it may grant rather than a right you can insist on. For the wider picture, our pages on council tax bailiffs and liability orders go further.

Parking, traffic debt and the persistent-evader operation

Where the debt is an unpaid council parking or traffic penalty, it is registered at the Traffic Enforcement Centre and the council takes out a warrant of control. That warrant, not a liability order, is the authority Penham Excel work under here.

This is the corner of the market Penham Excel are best known for. The firm markets a specialism in tracking down persistent evaders of road traffic debt, using ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) cameras to locate vehicles for local authorities, heavy goods vehicles included. ANPR is only a means of finding a vehicle, though, and it grants no extra power. Once the vehicle turns up, the case runs on the same warrant of control and the same fees as any other penalty.

Some penalties should never have reached this stage. If the original penalty charge notice never arrived, you had already won an appeal, or you were not the registered keeper when it was issued, the Traffic Enforcement Centre may provide a route back. 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 where you are asking to file 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. That challenge is separate from enforcement itself and worth making when it genuinely fits. The Traffic Enforcement Centre page explains the mechanics, and the forms are covered under PE3 and TE9 forms.

On entry, a traffic penalty is treated exactly as council tax is: an agent may not force a way into a home on a first visit.

Business premises and commercial rent

Penham Excel also work on the commercial side, through Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery, better known as CRAR.

CRAR is a landlord-only remedy, available against a business tenant of premises let for business use, and never against someone in their home. The two conditions that trip creditors up are that the lease must exist in writing and that a floor of unpaid rent, set at seven days' worth, has to be outstanding at the point the enforcement notice goes out and again at the point goods are first taken. Our Dukes Bailiffs page walks through the CRAR conditions in detail, Dukes running a comparable mix of commercial and council work.

What the fee stages cost

The fees are set by regulation, so they do not vary from one firm to the next anywhere in England and Wales.

These are the figures on the scale that took effect on 1 May 2026. A file opened before that date may still carry the older, lower fees, so if you are checking a bill, the date the instruction started is what settles which scale applies.

More than one debt in one visit

Fees do not simply stack up. Regulation 11 of the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 lets the £79 compliance fee be taken once for every separate enforcement power, while the £247 enforcement fee and the £116 sale fee are each chargeable only once when the debts can sensibly be dealt with on the same visit. So two council tax orders enforced together come to £405, not a doubled £326. If a visit fee has been added to each debt separately, that is worth putting in writing and querying.

Can Penham Excel force their way in?

For council tax, business rates or a parking penalty, no agent may force entry to a home on a first visit. Getting in has to be peaceable, through a door you open yourself or one left unlocked. You are under no duty to answer, and nothing is added to the debt for keeping the door shut.

An agent who is kept out has to withdraw. What they can still do is take control of a vehicle left within reach outside, charge the enforcement-stage fee once its trigger is met, and come back on another day.

The exceptions are few and specific. Business premises carry broader powers than a dwelling, and returning after a controlled goods agreement has been broken can allow reasonable force where the statutory tests are satisfied. Our guide to when bailiffs can force entry spells out which paragraph of Schedule 12 permits what.

What can and cannot be taken

An agent may take control only of goods that belong to the debtor. Something owned by a partner, another person in the household, or, on business premises, a supplier or a finance company, is off limits simply for being there, although in practice you will usually need paperwork to prove it rather than your word alone.

Some things are protected outright by regulation 4, whatever the debt: ordinary clothing and bedding, the basic equipment a household runs on, anything needed for medical care or for looking after a child, a disabled person or an older person, pets and assistance dogs, and any vehicle showing a valid disabled person's badge. Work tools and equipment are shielded too, but only up to £1,350 across the lot, one combined ceiling rather than a fresh allowance per item.

The car is usually the first worry, because it can sometimes be dealt with without anyone setting foot indoors. Who owns it tends to decide the argument: a Motability car is leased rather than owned, a vehicle still on hire purchase or PCP may belong to the finance company until the last instalment clears, and a car that is somebody else's in the household is not the debtor's to lose. See what bailiffs can take and can bailiffs take my car.

Paying Penham Excel and setting up a plan

Penham Excel take payment online and over the phone as well as by post, and "how do I pay" is one of the most common things people search alongside the company name. Whatever route you use, confirm first which debt the money is going against, what stage the case has reached and which fees are wrapped into the total, take a reference, and hang on to the receipt.

A plan on an enforcement debt normally runs through a controlled goods agreement: the listed items stay with you as long as you keep the payments going. Before you sign, make sure every entry on the list is genuinely yours, that nothing protected has slipped onto it, and that the outstanding balance and the fee stages are right.

Defaulting on that agreement carries more weight than an ordinary missed payment. It can hand the agent a right of re-entry that did not exist before, and, where the statutory conditions line up, that re-entry can involve reasonable force. If a payment is going to be missed, say so before the date, not after it.

When you simply cannot afford it

Flag it early, and put numbers behind it rather than a bare statement that the money is not there. An offer built on an honest account of what comes in and what goes out will land better than a figure plucked from nowhere, and National Debtline, StepChange and Citizens Advice will help you assemble that account for free.

Challenging the amount

If the underlying debt is wrong, take that up with the creditor, not just with Penham Excel. An agent can collect only what it was handed; it cannot rewrite a council tax account, redo a rates bill or adjust a landlord's rent record. Only the creditor, the court, or, for a penalty, the Traffic Enforcement Centre, can change those.

Ask for the billing history, the date and value of the liability order or warrant, the period it covers, and a full record of what has been paid. At the same time, tell Penham Excel in writing that the sum is disputed and where you have raised it.

When the person named has moved on

Say so quickly, and back it with something proportionate showing who lives there now: a council tax bill, a tenancy agreement, or a recent utility bill in your own name. Do not pay off a stranger's debt just to make the letters stop, and do not bin them either, because an unresolved question over the address can curdle into a dispute about your own possessions if an agent later assumes the named person is still resident.

If you are vulnerable, tell them

Set it out in writing to both Penham Excel and the creditor as soon as you can. There is no fixed tick-list for vulnerability; it turns on individual circumstances, and serious illness, disability, bereavement, pregnancy, difficulties that come with age, language or reading barriers, recent trauma or a household in crisis can all count, frequently more than one at once.

What follows depends on the situation, and can mean more time, a different way of being contacted, a gentler payment arrangement or a temporary pause. None of it wipes the debt out; it changes the way enforcement is handled.

Are the Penham Excel reviews worth reading?

Type the company name in and the results fill with the word "reviews," so it helps to know what that actually tells you. Enforcement of any kind draws only a thin scatter of public reviews against the volume of cases behind them, and nearly all come from the moment of first contact rather than from a settled ending. That skew runs across the whole trade, not one firm, and a low overall score is no evidence that a particular letter is fake or that your own case is bound to go badly.

The thing worth verifying is not a star rating but whether the letter in your hand is real, which the next section covers.

Is the letter actually from Penham Excel?

ECB accreditation, which the firm held from October 2023 but no longer appeared to hold at the September 2026 register check, is only ever a sign that a firm has signed up to independent oversight; it does not vouch for any single letter.

To test the one in front of you, ring the council or landlord it names, on a number you have found yourself from their own website rather than off the letter, and ask whether Penham Excel really are instructed on your account. Councils have to publish which enforcement firms they use, and that published list plus one phone call will settle it faster than anything else.

Making a complaint

Go to Penham Excel first. The firm runs a two-stage internal process: an acknowledgement, then a first reply within at most five working days, and, if you are still unhappy, a further review by a manager or director. Give the date and time, the agent's name if you have it, the case reference, what happened, and the precise rule or factual mistake you are relying on.

Then the creditor, the council or landlord that instructed the firm. This is often the step that actually shifts something, since the creditor can recall a case or fix an account the agent has no power to touch.

Then independent oversight. For a council debt, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can investigate once the council's own complaints procedure is exhausted. The Enforcement Conduct Board can only look at conduct complaints about firms on its accredited list, and Penham Excel was not on that list when it was checked on 22 September 2026, so confirm the current position before relying on that route. A challenge to an individual agent's certificate is a different matter, made to the County Court that issued it.

Keep the dates, the letters, any photographs, and the names of everyone you deal with along the way.

First moves

1. Pin down which debt this is, because both the entry rules and the fee scale hang on the answer.
2. Measure the stage reached and the fees charged against the tables above, and bring in regulation 11 if there is more than one debt.
3. If the debt itself is wrong, write to the creditor today, not only to Penham Excel.
4. If it is right but out of reach, work up an income and expenditure position, then either make a realistic offer or pay online against the correct reference.
5. If you are vulnerable, put that in writing now, to both the firm and the creditor.
6. Keep any vehicle that is not yours to lose out of reach, with the paperwork ready to show.