A WATCHDOG has blasted Bury Council and a firm of bailiffs for a catalogue of errors while collecting a debt.

After considering the details of a bailiff visit to a house in Bury in December 2013, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has ordered town hall bosses and Rossendales, the bailiffs, to apologise to those wronged and make a series of changes.

In the incident, a man, who has not been named in the LGO's damning report published today, owed £780 in unpaid council tax.

His home had been repossessed and he was staying at a friend's house.

Rossendales sent a bailiff to the property and, after walking in uninvited and without showing ID, he threatened to take belongings worth £1,110 — unless the homeowner could prove they were his, and not the debtor's.

As the debtor, his friend and a lawyer debated the matter with the bailiff, the bailiff swore at them and urged the debtor to "ring round friends and family" to get the cash.

Feeling pressured, the homeowner paid £1,110 in cash and the lawyer complained to Bury Council chiefs, who said Rossendales did nothing wrong.

It then emerged the bailiff filmed the incident and the council acknowledged wrongdoing when the council reviewed the footage.

The LGO has ruled council chiefs should never have passed the debtor's case to Rossendales and should have dealt with the complaint quicker.

The report said: "The bailiff had no reasonable grounds to consider the property and possessions of the homeowner's home belonged to the debtor.

"We find the bailiff's refusal to exercise any common sense, his aggressive attitude and clear threat to remove his goods put the homeowner in a position where considered he had to settle the debt, even though he had no legal liability to do so."

The LGO has ordered the council to write off the debt owed by the debtor, who died suddenly in January.

The council must refund the £1,100 to the homeowner, apologise to him and pay him £250 for the distress its actions have caused.

It must also apologise and pay £250 to the lawyer, change its bailiff policy and ensure Rossendales staff know their code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the incident.

Following the judgement, Bury Council's chief executive Mike Owen said: "We have long had policies in place on how best to collect any council tax that we are owed, which includes, as the LGO quotes, being firm but fair.

"On this occasion, we accept that we could have done more.

"However, the main fault lies with the conduct of our contractor in pursuing this debt, and their failure to investigate the complaint properly.

"We have made our views on this very clear to them, and they have apologised profusely to us for this.

"We do accept all of the recommendations, and action has already been taken to address the issues raised."

A Rossendales spokesman said: “We accept that the conduct referred to in the report falls short of the high standards set by the company and we sincerely regret the conduct of our enforcement agent on this occasion.

“Since the incident in 2013, Rossendales has re-trained its entire enforcement agent workforce on the new regulations on seizing goods, the appropriateness of professional conduct, courtesy and respect for individuals, and the Data Protection Act principles.

“Rossendales has dealt with 13,721 council tax cases for Bury Council with minimal complaints and no previous referral to the LGO.

“We deal with many thousands of council-tax enforcement cases across the country and our record of complaints received is less than one per cent.

“The number of complaints received by us has continued to go down over the last year.”