About Bristow & Sutor
Our directly employed local authority enforcement agents work extensively throughout England and Wales to collect three main types of debt for local authorities: Council Tax, Non-Domestic Rates and Penalty Charge Notices, such as parking fines.
We also collect Sundry Debt, including former tenant arrears and overpaid housing benefit, through a specialist debt collection agency Credit Style.
What are Bristow & Sutor's mission and vision?
Our mission
To be the leading UK debt recovery group focused on providing an ethical, compliance-focused, and high quality service to the public and private sectors. We use technology and data analytics to achieve market-leading collection performance, whilst protecting the most vulnerable in society and the reputations of our clients.
Our vision
Bristow & Sutor is committed to achieving this by living our core values in all that we do, and in working closely with our stakeholders to incorporate, disseminate and, where we can, define and promote best practice.
How do you charge?
Bristow & Sutor charge fees in accordance with the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014. While we appreciate that debtors may consider these fees high compared with their original debt, they are simple, fixed and transparent as laid out by the regulations, and so present little reason for dispute.
There are two different fee scales, one for High Court Enforcement, and one for non-High Court Enforcement.
Non- High Court Enforcement Fee Scale
The three fees that you may have to pay are as follows:
- £75 Compliance stage fee added to every case as soon as we are asked to collect the debt
- £235 Enforcement stage fee added as soon as a visit is made for a case or group of cases with a value of up to £1500. If the case or group of cases are above £1500 a further 7.5% of the debt above the £1500 is added
- £110 Sale or Disposal stage fee added as soon as a visit is made for the purpose of removing controlled goods for a case or group of cases with a value of up to £1500. If the case or group of cases are above £1500 a further 7.5% of the debt above the £1500 is added
As an example, if you have three cases with a total value of £2000 the enforcement fee would be £235 + 7.5% of £500. This is £272.50 which is then rounded up to £273.
High Court Enforcement Fee Scale
The four fees that you may have to pay are as follows:-
- £75 Compliance stage fee added to every case as soon as we are asked to collect the debt.
- £190 Enforcement stage 1 fee added as soon as a visit is made for a case or group of cases with a value of up to £1000. If the case or group of cases are above £1000 a further 7.5% of the debt above the £1000 is added.
- £495 Enforcement Stage 2 fee added on default of a controlled goods agreement or if no controlled goods agreement in place follow
- £525 Sale or Disposal stage fee added as soon as a visit is made for the purpose of removing controlled goods for a case or group of cases with a value of up to £1000. If the case or group of cases are above £1000 a further 7.5% of the debt above the £1000 is added.
As an example if you have three cases with a total value of £2000 the enforcement fee would be £190 + 7.5% of £1000. This comes to £265.
You could also have to pay for things like locksmiths charges, storage charges and fees charged or incurred by auctioneers.