Invasion of privacy
We would prefer you didn’t publish that,” said the spokesman for the RSPCA. “But of course it’s up to you.” Well, so it is, and so I will. What he would prefer you not to know is this. Despite its adoption of police-style uniforms and marks of rank, the RSPCA has no legal right of entry to your home. It is a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Nevertheless, it seems to like what it sees in the mirror. Though it insists it does not actively encourage people to believe it has powers of entry and arrest – “We would never try to mislead anyone,” says the man – neither does it try very hard to put the canard to rest. “It helps us to be able to get in there and have a look.”
An “Englishman’s castle” fuss will always erupt when someone claiming special rights wants the portcullis raised. The argument is every bit as old as the language it is couched in. Victor Tunkel, secretary of the legal-history group the Selden Society, explains that creditors even in Anglo-Saxon times had a “right of distress”, allowing them to “seize a bloke’s best beast, the tools of his trade or his bed”. Royal tax collectors similarly were seldom shy of crossing the threshold, and history has offered few ruder awakenings than “Open up in the name of the King!” All that has changed is the volume and complexity of the law, the number of officials claiming right of entry and their reasons for doing so.
It is important nevertheless to keep a sense of proportion. In April, a report from the right-leaning think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) – Crossing the Threshold: 266 Ways the State Can Enter Your Home – generated some arresting headlines. It was all good knockabout fun, but bureaucracy had not gone quite as mad as it looked. Only a vanishingly small number of the “266 ways” listed by the report’s author, a barrister called Harry Snook, will inconvenience anyone who is not slaughtering chickens, stockpiling weapons or running a crime syndicate.
Included in Snook’s list, for example, were the Landmines Act, the Biological Weapons Act, the Emergency Laws (Re-enactments and Repeals) Act (allowing officials to “seize documents relating to price controls on medical supplies and milk”), the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (so forget any idea of freelance cloning), the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspection) Act, the Theatres Act, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, the Coast Protection Act, the Diseases of Fish Act, the Explosives Act, the Radioactive Material (Road Transport) Act, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act, the Slaughterhouses Act, the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act, the British Waterways Act, the Civil Aviation Act, the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, the Hypnotism Act, the International Carriage of Perishable Foodstuffs Act, the Milk (Cessation of Production) Act, the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act, the Riding Establishments Act, the Slaughter of Poultry Act, the Hops Certification Regulations, the Haiti (United Nations Sanctions) Order (for officials checking for “evidence of trade with Haiti”), the Conservation of Seals Act… and so on, for 30 pages. Yes, there are 266 laws, or bits of laws, that theoretically allow your privacy to be transgressed by “faceless bureaucrats”. But the fact is, you are more likely to wake up to find the Princess Royal smoking dope in your wardrobe than you are to rub up against most of this lot.
The pity is that exaggeration dilutes the report’s impact and undermines some cogent thinking about reform. Even those relatively few powers that do potentially affect ordinary lives are scatter-gunned through the law books with such variation and inconsistency that no householder could possibly “know his rights”. Snook calculates that only 26% of the “266 powers” require prior notice to be given. “Of these,” he says, “56% require 24 hours’ notice, 6% 48 hours, 14% 7 days, 1.5% 10 days, 11% 14 days, 1.5% 21 days and 9% 28 days.” Who actually knows this? There are wide inconsistencies, too, in the requirement for officials to show written authority (astonishingly, most don’t have to), in the permitted use of force, in the need for a warrant, and in the penalties faced by citizens who bar the door. These range from £20 (under the Geological Survey Act) to £5,000 (Landmines Act, Broadcasting Act, Animal Health Act and many others). Some even carry a prison sentence.
Snook makes a strong case for a single Powers of Entry Act that would provide “a clear, concrete and consistent set of rules on who can enter”. But even this would deal only with protocol. It would do nothing to reduce the number of powers or slow their rate of proliferation. Snook quotes the historian A J P Taylor: “Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman [one can infer also Welshman, Ulsterman or Scot] could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home.” This did not mean that the state before 1914 had no reason to come calling, but the war was a turning point. Individual liberty became subordinate to state security, and the government, initially through the Defence of the Realm Act (Dora), swiftly set about monitoring and restricting its citizens’ right to behave as they pleased. It has gone on doing so ever since as an increasingly technological, mobile and regulated world throws up new opportunities for people to thwart its intentions. Snook calculates that 31 of the 266 powers were enacted in the 1970s, 62 in the 1980s and 67 in the 1990s. As governments tend not to repeal old acts as they introduce new ones, the total just keeps on growing. Even though most of Snook’s 266 have no bearing on ordinary lives, and nobody yet born is subject to more than a fraction of them, the state and its agents still have plenty of excuses for knuckling people’s doors. The human-rights group Liberty points out that the police alone can cite the Gaming Act, Firearms Act, Misuse of Drugs Act, Criminal Law Act, Public Order Acts, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, and Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
But there is an underlying principle here that has been recognised since long before Dora. If you commit a crime, or are suspected of one, then you can expect some heavy-handed intrusion from the law. Cock-ups will happen – wrong addresses raided, innocent people ble Foodstuffs Act, the Milk (Cessation of Production) Act, the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act, the Riding Establishments Act, the Slaughter of Poultry Act, the Hops Certification Regulations, the Haiti (United Nations Sanctions) Order (for officials checking for “evidence of trade with Haiti”), the Conservation of Seals Act… and so on, for 30 pages. Yes, there are 266 laws, or bits of laws, that theoretically allow your privacy to be transgressed by “faceless bureaucrats”. But the fact is, you are more likely to wake up to find the Princess Royal smoking dope in your wardrobe than you are to rub up against most of this lot.
The pity is that exaggeration dilutes the report’s impact and undermines some cogent thinking about reform. Even those relatively few powers that do potentially affect ordinary lives are scatter-gunned through the law books with such variation and inconsistency that no householder could possibly “know his rights”. Snook calculates that only 26% of the “266 powers” require prior notice to be given. “Of these,” he says, “56% require 24 hours’ notice, 6% 48 hours, 14% 7 days, 1.5% 10 days, 11% 14 days, 1.5% 21 days and 9% 28 days.” Who actually knows this? There are wide inconsistencies, too, in the requirement for officials to show written authority (astonishingly, most don’t have to), in the permitted use of force, in the need for a warrant, and in the penalties faced by citizens who bar the door. These range from £20 (under the Geological Survey Act) to £5,000 (Landmines Act, Broadcasting Act, Animal Health Act and many others). Some even carry a prison sentence.
Snook makes a strong case for a single Powers of Entry Act that would provide “a clear, concrete and consistent set of rules on who can enter”. But even this would deal only with protocol. It would do nothing to reduce the number of powers or slow their rate of proliferation. Snook quotes the historian A J P Taylor: “Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman [one can infer also Welshman, Ulsterman or Scot] could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home.” This did not mean that the state before 1914 had no reason to come calling, but the war was a turning point. Individual liberty became subordinate to state security, and the government, initially through the Defence of the Realm Act (Dora), swiftly set about monitoring and restricting its citizens’ right to behave as they pleased. It has gone on doing so ever since as an increasingly technological, mobile and regulated world throws up new opportunities for people to thwart its intentions. Snook calculates that 31 of the 266 powers were enacted in the 1970s, 62 in the 1980s and 67 in the 1990s. As governments tend not to repeal old acts as they introduce new ones, the total just keeps on growing. Even though most of Snook’s 266 have no bearing on ordinary lives, and nobody yet born is subject to more than a fraction of them, the state and its agents still have plenty of excuses for knuckling people’s doors. The human-rights group Liberty points out that the police alone can cite the Gaming Act, Firearms Act, Misuse of Drugs Act, Criminal Law Act, Public Order Acts, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, and Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
But there is an underlying principle here that has been recognised since long before Dora. If you commit a crime, or are suspected of one, then you can expect some heavy-handed intrusion from the law. Cock-ups will happen – wrong addresses raided, innocent people hauled off, too rough an interpretation of “reasonable force” – but by and large the pursuit of criminals and gathering of evidence are perceived to have a social benefit that outweighs the inconvenience they cause. In principle, they are not controversial. Most passengers on the Clapham omnibus similarly would not object to the Fire Services Act giving firemen the right to demand entry to neighbouring houses as well as the one on fire. They might be reassured, too, to know the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act permits the compulsory examination of anyone thought to be carrying the plague or cholera; that the National Assistance Act allows for the removal to hospital of anyone too ill to look after themselves; and that the Mental Health Act permits entry under warrant by police and social workers if a mentally ill person is not being properly cared for.
The conduct of childcare cases in the last several years has not done much for the credibility of social workers, but even so, few people would deny them their right under the Children Act to inspect foster homes. People living near severe infestations of mice or rats might also be grateful for the Public Health and Prevention of Damage by Pests Acts, which give local authorities the right to exterminate.
Other intruders may look more like the heirs of the Sheriff of Nottingham than of Robin Hood, but – in one form or another – their existence and modus operandi are as old as the word “tax” and their existence, however ruefully, is accepted by most. The Taxes Management Act says tax inspectors with a warrant may search your home if they suspect fraud; and the Value Added Tax Act gives similar powers to Vat inspectors (who may search people as well as property). Obstructing an inspector may count as assault.
It is also an offence under the Town and Country Planning Act – fine, £500 – to lock out a local-authority official investigating a planning issue. Obstructing a rating assessor authorised by the Local Government Finance Act comes slightly cheaper, at £250, though the council-tax revaluation scheme being trialled in Northern Ireland, and likely coming England’s way in future, inflates it to £1,000. Water companies under the Water Industry Act also have a right to inspect meters and check for abuse of the system. The Rights of Entry (Gas and Electricity Boards) Act, Electricity Act and Gas Act similarly empower gas and electricity companies. To obstruct an official with a warrant, or one requesting admission in an emergency, is to risk a £1,000 fine. One may have little taste for the officiousness of the individuals sent on such errands, but one sees the point and bites one’s lip.
One’s lip, however, bears deeper tooth marks when it comes to TV licensing. The BBC simply cannot believe that anyone would not want to watch its programmes. Anyone eschewing the pleasures of television, and thus also the price of a licence, will be presumed guilty until proven innocent. Owners of unlicensed properties can expect a leaf-storm of increasingly nasty pro-forma letters threatening visits by inspectors – enforceable by warrant – and criminal prosecution. As I personally can testify, it takes great forbearance and persistence by the victim to get the harassment stopped.
Persecution of readers and conversationalists is not the only housebreaking power wielded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Return of Cultural Objects Regulations allow an “officer of the Secretary of State” to enter and search premises where they expect to find “national treasures of artistic, cultural or archaeological value” that have been removed illegally from elsewhere in the European Union. Anyone with illicit imports of less uplifting nature of course risks attracting the interest of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), whose officers in certain circumstances have right of entry, search and arrest without a warrant, but it’s only drug barons, gunrunners and other industrial-scale traffickers – “serious criminals”, as HMRC puts it – who are likely to get their windows jemmied. Low-level chancers might get fingered with a surplus litre of non-EU liqueur or box of cigarillos at the airport, but nobody is going to come round and swing a sledgehammer through your cocktail cabinet.
A number of commentators shared Snook’s sense of outrage that HMRC’s use of “Writs of Assistance” to enter and search property without a warrant was not recorded as meticulously as, for example, Defra’s use of the Bees Act. But the fact is that in 2004-5, the last time they were audited, Writs of Assistance were used only 102 times (compared with 537 in 1978-9), which doesn’t look all that oppressive; and defence against bee disease is not the joke some people seem to think it is. Empty hives mean no pollination. No pollination means no crops. If the hives went dark, the very people now mocking the Bees Act would be first to demand jail for the rogues.
None of these – police, customs, tax officials and the rest – are welcome when they call, but none are quite as unwelcome as those pantomime villains among licensed intruders, the bailiffs. In the 17th century their habit of following closely behind their targets earned them the contemptuous epithet of “bumbailiffs”, a contempt hardly eased by Dickens’s depiction of them as a species of morally elastic legal lowlife. The moral elasticity remains, and so does the contempt. Last September a BBC Whistleblower programme, filmed by an undercover reporter, showed what goes on. Bailiffs employed by two supposedly reputable debt-recovery companies – one of them a national market leader with multiple contracts from local authorities – were illegally breaking into people’s houses, inflating the sums their victims owed, falsely claiming power to seize property and wrongly threatening parents and children of debtors. This is criminal behaviour that, extraordinarily, is carried out in the name of the law. One frightened pensioner was warned she would have to forfeit her washing machine unless she settled her son’s motoring fine – a blatant falsehood, but public ignorance of their powers is the bailiffs’ most potent weapon. The woman paid up.
It is no wonder bailiff companies are trying to rebrand themselves as “civil enforcement agents”, but the stigma remains. Debt collection is a line of work that, like all unsavoury jobs, has to be done by someone, and it must be accepted that a number of hard cases will need to be coerced. As spokesmen for the industry are fond of saying, you can’t have a system where people can avoid paying what they owe simply by refusing to open their doors. And here’s the problem. Bailiffing is not a job that appeals to diffident types who like to take no for an answer. The men it attracts are the kind who reckon they can handle themselves in a confrontation, which means that many of them are, by their nature, confrontational. “Many private bailiffs act almost as a law unto themselves,” says Peter Tutton, policy officer for Citizens Advice. “Intimidation, harassment and excessive fee-charging are commonplace, driving already vulnerable people deeper into poverty and debt.”
The story of Yvonne (not her real name), a 29-year-old single mother in east London, is typical. About a year ago (she is vague about the date) a traffic warden slapped a £40 ticket on her car while she was dropping off her daughter at school. She admits she parked illegally; agrees that it was her own failure to pay that caused the fine to escalate to £120. It was at that point, early this year, that the local authority called in the bailiffs. Unable to pay the full amount, she agreed to settle by instalments, and sent a cheque for the first two weeks’ worth. This was returned to her because she had failed to initial an alteration, and the bailiffs refused to accept it. “Two days later,” she says, “a bailiff came and said I owed £549. He wrongly said he had a warrant to get into the house and that he would get a locksmith in.” There was a struggle at the door – Yvonne trying to shut it, the bailiff struggling to get his foot in – and the police were called. “They said I had to let him in, and that we should go inside and talk.”
What happened next is typical of how bailiffs quell resistance. “He started walking around, pricing up things. He did a long sheet and said if I didn’t pay by a certain date, he would come in whether I was there or not and take things away. He was a big guy, very intimidating. Very forceful and rude, just horrible. The way he was going on, you’d believe I’d just murdered someone. You wouldn’t believe it was just a parking fine. I was extremely distressed. I’d never dealt with bailiffs before, so I didn’t know my rights.” Believing that the man’s account of the legal position must be correct, she paid what he asked for – £549 to cover a £120 fine – by credit card.
But the bailiff was not correct. Without a warrant, he had no right to enter, and only the right of a common thief to steal her property. Neither was there any justification for the sum he extracted. This is another favourite wheeze. Bailiffs are entitled to charge for visits to debtors’ homes, and it is the debtors who must pay. The temptation to exaggerate the number of visits is, like a plate of mince set before a rottweiler, not easily resisted. In Yvonne’s case her local Citizens Advice Bureau managed to claw back £300 from the bailiffs. But not everyone is so lucky. “In an analysis of 500 cases,” says Peter Tutton, “we found nearly half added excessive charges. Also we see evidence where people could not afford to pay the whole sum at once and have offered to pay by instalments, but bailiffs have refused.”
It is perhaps the misfortune of debt-collectors to ply a trade of such obvious distaste to those who come into contact with it. Encomiums from satisfied members of the public are as rare as bailiffs with firsts in social science, and they don’t expect to be liked. Negative bias, however, cannot explain the malpractices exposed by the Whistleblower programme, nor the number of cases referred to Citizens Advice. Many of the problems derive from the arcane peculiarities of the law, which streetwise bailiffs know how to manipulate. Even when they are armed with a warrant, they have no right to force entry to a home. “Force”, however, means just what it says. They mustn’t break down a fence or gate, but it’s okay to climb over. They mustn’t force open a closed door or a window, but it’s okay to go through if it’s open. And once they’re inside, the whole ball game changes. Now they can enter any rooms they like, break open locked cupboards, identify and seize property. And on any subsequent visit, regardless of whether anyone is at home, they can break and enter as they please.
This is why gaining “peaceable entry” is such a crucial skill. When his knock at the door is answered, a bailiff may not barge the householder aside like a rugby forward at a ruck (that would be assault), but he can nip round him like a scrum half and make a scoring run across the line (that is peaceable entry). Other stratagems include asking to borrow the house telephone “to call the office”, asking to use the lavatory, or suggesting “a chat inside”.
In a snap survey between October 2006 and March this year, Citizens Advice recorded 500 accounts of misconduct from 131 local bureaux. Sixty-four per cent of these reported harassment or intimidation; 40% said bailiffs had threatened forcible entry when they had no power to do so; 25% that they falsely threatened imprisonment and 43% that they extorted more money than was owed. Threats sometimes had included even the seizure of pets. In one case, entry had been forced past a handicapped child who was told by the bailiff that he would get “a warrant of arrest” and send his mother to prison for three months.
Parliament, too, is showing concern. In a debate on March 5 this year, MPs complained of constituents being harried for debts they had already paid, which were owed by previous occupants of their homes, or had been run up by criminals who stole their identities. “[Bailiffs] stick their foot in the door,” said the constitutional affairs minister Vera Baird, “go in through an open window or a skylight, wait till the garden is open and so on. Such appalling, scary behaviour cannot continue.”
There is irony in the fact that she said this while proposing the second reading of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill, which would have the effect of extending private bailiffs’ powers. Not only would they be allowed to go on forcing entry, seizing and selling property to cover unpaid fines or tax; in future they could recover civil debt – unpaid credit-card bills, for example – in the same way too. By coincidence, the Department for Transport at the same time was conducting a “feasibility study” that could result in bailiffs being given a right of entry to enforce parking tickets – a development that, to the particular horror of motoring organisations, could put another million people a year at risk of legal break-ins.
Baird offered some reassurances: that powers of entry would be used only as a last resort, that they would be available only to “certificated” bailiffs who had received “suitable training” and passed a criminal-record check, and that rogues would be fined and disqualified. But a regulator was a matter for the future. It would not be in the bill. Two weeks later, however, came the climb-down. The new powers of entry, she said, “will not come into force until those bailiffs who are not Crown employees are licensed by an independent regulator”. Even so, the welcome was muted. “The regulation must be robust enough to end the years of abuse,” says Peter Tutton. “We have argued that the bill needed stronger safeguards to ensure that forcible entry is used only as an absolute last resort, and only after the vulnerability of the debtor and their ability to make repayments have been taken into account. Only then will the bad bailiffs be beaten.”
It would be hard to think of a charity that stirs more controversy than the RSPCA. Whole websites are dedicated to it, smarting with injustice, bristling fur balls of virtual rage. The webmasters are not frustrated badger-baiters, dog-eaters or seal-clubbers thirsting for blood. They are animal lovers in the full, mildly eccentric British tradition of enjoying the company of other species rather more than their own, and placing animal welfare at the top of the moral pyramid. But it’s “welfare” that is the problem. Welfarists believe they have a duty of care to wild, domestic and companion animals, which, crudely put, means treating them kindly. Against this school of thought stands the rights movement, which rejects human exploitation of animals in all its forms: as meat, pet, workhorse, laboratory tool, racer, fighter, public exhibit, performer or quarry in the hunt. It is towards this school of thought that the RSPCA, amid much well-publicised clamour, has shifted its ground. This places in the front line every cat- and dog-owner but especially pet shops, a point made clear by the RSPCA in a letter to local authorities in 1999. “The RSPCA,” it said bluntly, “is opposed to the sale of animals in pet shops.” It is this demonisation of the trade, and what critics regard as the harassment of individuals, that has done more than anything to widen the rift. Any allegation of cruelty by one person against another is likely to result in the appearance of a police lookalike demanding to inspect or even seize their animals. Widespread misunderstanding of the Animal Welfare Act means that many pet-owners do indeed believe RSPCA inspectors have the power to do this. It is a misapprehension that the organisation finds convenient and which it seems in no hurry to correct. As the spokesman said, “We would prefer you didn’t publish that.”
It is a position that many might applaud. Legal nicety versus relief of animal suffering? It’s a no-brainer. But it’s not always as simple as that. Conflict arises because the police, who do have bona-fide powers of entry, have neither the resources nor the expertise to enforce the act. For this reason, says Chris Newman, chairman of the Federation of Companion Animal Societies, enforcement defaults to the RSPCA. “They impersonate police officers and commit trespass. People do believe they have powers of entry.”
Nigel Weller, a solicitor based in Lewes who specialises in defending RSPCA prosecutions, puts it more strongly: “In every single case I’ve been involved in, they have abused their power.” Often, he says, the RSPCA ask police to attend, ostensibly to avoid a breach of the peace. “Then they argue it was a police officer, acting legally, who seized property, when in fact it was the RSPCA.” As RSPCA prosecutions are brought privately and do not require the sanction of the Crown Prosecution Service, this raises issues both of accountability and conflict of interest.
Sally Case, head of prosecutions, insists that RSPCA inspectors are trained specifically to make clear to pet-owners that they have no such right. They act without an owner’s permission, she says, “only if an animal is suffering in a dire emergency. If the court feels evidence has been wrongly obtained, it can refuse to admit it”.
And yet here as elsewhere, suspicion and misapprehension will persist. No process that involves humans is ever perfect. The conflicts between the rights of individuals and the rights of the state are exactly that: conflicts. They are conflicts in which, through sheer opacity and volume of law, the advantage more than ever tilts towards the state. But confusion is not a legitimate tool of governance, and Harry Snook is right to argue for clarity. Defence of your rights must begin with knowing what they are. Your home may not quite be a castle, but neither should it be a house of straw
Who can come in?
HM Revenue & Customs Can apply for warrant to search for contraband. If serious trafficking suspected, can enter without warrant. Can enter at a “reasonable time” to investigate any activity liable to Vat. Can enter to value property for inheritance tax. Fine for obstruction: £200.
Utility companies Electricity companies can inspect equipment, or remove or install a meter. May enter immediately in emergency. Must give two working days’ notice for removal of meter. Gas suppliers have similar rights. Fine for obstruction: £1,000. Water companies can enforce hosepipe ban. Must give 24 hours’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £200. Can also enter property to inspect system, check water quality and install or examine meter. Must give 24 hours’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £1,000.
Fire Brigade can force entry to fight fire. Fine for obstruction: £1,000.
Television licensing BBC or Ofcom officers can enter with warrant. Fine for obstruction: £5,000.
Seizure of property County courts can authorise seizure of property to settle unpaid debt. Bailiffs may be assisted by police. Tax inspectors can remove goods to value of unpaid tax. Landlords can enter without warrant to seize property in lieu of rent.
Dangerous dogs Police under warrant can enter and search.
Buildings and land Inspectors can check for compliance with regulations. Must give 24 hours’ notice and arrive at a “reasonable time”. Fine for obstruction: £200. Fireplaces can be inspected in smoke-control areas. Seven days’ notice is required. Fine for obstruction: £1,000. Local authorities can enter and switch off continuously sounding burglar alarm. Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 allows officials to inspect property. Must give between three and 14 days’ notice. The Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 also allows them to survey. Must give 14 days’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £1,000. Officials can inspect and order work to be done on trees. Local authorities can inspect high hedges. Must give 24 hours’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £1,000. Neighbours can come in to carry out maintenance of party wall. It must be during “reasonable hours” and they must give 14 days’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £1,000. Local authorities can inspect for rats and mice. Must give 24 hours’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £200.
Noise After warning notice, local authorities can enter to seize equipment at night. Fine for obstruction: £1,000.
Health Officials can test for notifiable diseases. Must give 24 hours’ notice. Fine for obstruction: £1,000
Source:
timesonline
