Do you need an SIA licence if you are a bailiff enforcing a court order or rent arrears and clamp a car from private property and charge a release fee. Yes, you do, the SIA has established.
That means bailiffs cannot clamp, obstruct or remove vehicles from private property and charge a release fee (or whatever the fee is called). There has been confusion because it was thoguth the Private Security Act 2001 did not apply in this case, and that a release fee could be charged for clamping, thanks to the Road Traffic Act 1988. But, the authorities have ruled, there will be no exemptions for bailiffs, so if a bailiff or other enforcement officer clamps – or obstructs or removes – a vehicle from private property and charges a release fee, that is an offence. And, to repeat, a release fee cannot be disguised as an ‘enforcement cost’. You do not need an SIA licence, though, if you clamp and then release without a fee – as for instance Loughborough University, to name one site, do; and their staff therefore do not need a wheel clamper licence.
