Transfer Your Possession Order to the High Court
Once you've gained a possession order for your property you might reasonably expect that the county court bailiff could attend quickly to evict your tenant. In the past this was the case, but courts have been busy lately, and in some areas the waiting list can be several months! If you find yourself in this situation you have the option to employ a private bailiff instead. This will cost you more money in fees than the county court bailiff, but if you went to court in the first place in order to secure possession of your property it's possible that the tenant is behaving in a way that will cost you more in the waiting period for the county court bailiff than the increased fee of the private bailiff. Anyway, you can do the working out - this article is to tell you what it is you need to do if you decide to go down this route.
You cannot just give the job to a private bailiff. If you do then (presuming they don't point out your error) your eviction will be illegal. You have to submit a request to the court first to allow your eviction to be carried out this way. It is the high court that needs to authorise this, so you need to write to the county court seeking permission to transfer the enforcement aspect of your court order to the high court. This transfer takes place under the auspices of section 42 of the County Court Act 1984, and this is what you should quote in your request. You have to give a valid reason to ask for a transfer to the high court, and citing a long delay before the county court bailiff can attend is perfectly acceptable. You need to complete the specified form (N244) and submit it to the court with the requisite fee (£50 at the time of writing).
Once the option to transfer has been approved by the county court, you complete Part 1 and Part 3 of Form
N293A. You then take this form to the same County Court that issued the
judgement. Providing everything is in order and the order or judgement still stands, then
the court will seal Part 2 of the Form N293A, authorising the transfer to the High
Court for the purposes of enforcement. However, it remains a County Court
judgement.
Once the Form N293A has been sealed you can then be submit it to
the High Court or a local District Registry (a High Court section within many County
Courts) who will check the details of the forms and seal the writ of control accordingly.
You can then instruct your private bailiff.