Debt collection and bailiffs

You must not communicate with a debtor either by phone or in-person on a statutory holiday, on a Sunday between 1 pm and 5 pm local time, or any other day between 9 pm to 7 am.

You are not allowed to:

1. use threatening, profane or intimidating language
2. exert undue, excessive or unreasonable pressure to collect a debt
3. publish or threaten to publish the debtor’s failure to pay (except to a credit reporting agency)
4. call too frequently as this can be considered harassment

You are only allowed to contact a debtor’s family or household, relative, neighbour, friend, employer or acquaintance to try to get their home address, phone number or email.

By law, a debtor can request to be contacted in writing only. After receiving this letter, you are not allowed to contact them by telephone.

You must send a debtor a written notice about their debt before you can start calling. There are two exceptions to this rule:

1. You can make a reasonable effort to call the debtor before sending them a written notice about the debt only to confirm their correct contact information.
2. If you have bought the debt from the creditor, then you become the creditor and aren’t required to send the debtor a written notification first (which means that you can begin calling them right away).

On March 25, the BC government announced new measures to protect renters from residential eviction. Immediate measures include:

• halting evictions by ensuring a landlord may not issue a new notice to end the tenancy for any reason. However, in exceptional cases where it may be needed to protect health and safety or to prevent undue damage to the property, landlords will be able to apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch for a hearing.
• halting the enforcement of existing eviction notices issued by the Residential Tenancy Branch, except in extreme cases where there are safety concerns. The smaller number of court-ordered evictions are up to the courts, which operate independently of government.

In light of these measures, we are taking this opportunity to remind our licensed commercial bailiffs that they are not permitted to perform residential evictions under the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act.