Not according to Sky. A mobile phone contract states how much of the monthly fee goes to paying off your phone so it becomes your property, not seen that on sky.

Equally, nothing stops the OP from putting up something that oops, blocks the reception of the dish, such as a thick lead panel nailed in front. I could kind of see the neighbours point of view when he first moved in, but as he clearly has had Sky in to fit new equipment, then knowing the OP is unhappy, he could have gotten the engineer to resite the new dish. I would also suggest pointing out to Sky, that the Neighbour cannot grant Sky permission to enter the OP's property, that privilege rests with the OP! So Sky themselves are still committing Tresspass, since nobody who can give permission has done so. If Sky suffered a financial penalty for it, then I imagine they might have recourse against the neighbour, but that does not absolve them of their own responsibilties, they can't point at the neighbour and say a big boy did it, and ran away. Whilst a Client has vicarious responsibility for the actions of a contractor, that does not absolve the contractor, or let them go home free - the same way that a Local Authority for example is vicariously responsible for the actions of a Bailiff collecting Council Tax, but that does not mean a victim of Bailiff naughtyness can only take the action against the Council, the Bailiff firm cannot point at the Council and say sorry guv, go see them, a victim would have recourse seperately and individually against the council and the bailiff firm, and so the OP has courses of action re tresspass against the neighbour AND Sky, it would be up to sky afterwards to attempt redress for any losses with the neighbour. It's why I am surprised they refused to even take a complaint, unless they are hoping to avoid responsibility by denying they were ever even contacted, in which case I suggest the OP telephones Sky again, removing unequivocally their consent to enter the property, and record the conversation, and then follow up with a letter explaining the same. As far as I know, this is still perfectly legal for all issues, it is only not useable against anyone with a valid court warrant such as Bailiffs, and I would suggest the OP Sends it to Sky. This Notice Applies to Sky, and all any any Agents, Employees and Contractors working for an on behalf of Sky: All rights of Access implied or otherwise, to the above residency are both revoked and Access is absolutely Denied Any subsequent visits to this address will be considered trespass.

"Banksy" as far as I know never, ever confirms whether an piece of artwork is his or not, hence there is absolutely no way of proving whether one is his or not. I have seen it I think on that "4 Dealers" Channel 4 programme where someone was trying to sell what they thought was a Banksy, but it was pointed out that as he never confirms, there can be no proof of authenticity. so whilst you might get one on your wall, or manage to "save" on, buying it off a council or property owner, you are not necessarily going to make millions or even thousands, as there is no way to prove whether its genuine or not. So a court claim from Banksy seems unlikely, as it would mean revealing his identity, and then probably getting his collar felt for thousands of graffiti and property defacement fines Copyright can be a very odd beast though. Police Boxes were designed for, or on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service, but after a famous, bitter court case, the MPS Lost, and the BBC were given full copyright to the design as it is more recogniseable as the time machine from Doctor Who than it's original function. At the other end of the scale, they have been attempting to pass EU wide legislation that would make city landscapes copyrighted, and thus taking a photo and publishing it of say, the Gherkin in London would be copyright breach.

Sky own all equipment, both the digibox, and the Dish, if they supplied them. https://skytv.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/142/~/who-owns-the-sky-equipment%3F SKY owns all SKY gear from the dish to the indoor equipment (SKY Box, SKY card, SKY remote control, SKY cables, connectivity devices, etc). If the gear is faulty our Crew will fix or replace it. The same way that if you get a free router with your internet connection, the ISP will claim ownership of the Router, or for example your bank maintains ownership of "your" Debit Card.

If it is lawful to remove, ie physically cut and sever overhanging tree branches as long as you returm them to the owner, surely removing a dish that is on the OP's property would not class as criminal damage either. To look at it a slightly different way, the Dish is taking up the OP's personal property space - what if he wanted to make use of his space and fit something, such as a garage, but the dish is blocking the way? I lived in a back to back house, where the normal place a dish would be placed is facing opposite the satalites, so the Engineer simply mounted the dish on a Pole, no reason why that can't be done for the neighbour, rather than using up the OP's space. Since it is using his space and land, it surely wouldn't be unreasonable to demand Rent?

To a normal person, absolutely. To a Council Manager determined to build a profitable revenue stream, just from having a couple of people walking the streets? No problem at all. I would amend the old phrase "Crime doesn't pay" to "Crime doesn't pay, unless your a Civil Servant able to issue fines"

I believe it is a offence, though can not recall if its "Criminal" to give false details/ When I worked for a City Council, the Intranet had a weekly news thing gloating about all the litter fines issued, and there were usually 2 or 3 a week who had given false details and been tracked and identified by CCTV.

Send them a reply point out that tracing agencies charge X amount, therefore if they require your help, then they must contract you for that fee. If they wish to engage your services, for £200 a go, all they need do is send another letter

As Ploddertom said, dont let them in - they have no right of forced entry - keep all your doors locked - they are not allowed to enter through open windows anymore, but given the reputation of some Enforcement Agents, it might be better to keep them closed. Also keep your Car well away from your house so they can't seize it!!

A problem of some MH conditions is a tendency to "bury things" hence, stuff that looks like bills and so on just gets shoved in a drawer, or filed in the bin unopened, which is why so many people genuinely vulnerable wont have gotten in contact with the LA before EA action. If an LA has any sort of responsibility to deal with the genuinely vulnerable slightly differently and to try and identify those vulnerable, surely that responsibility is more than "oh they should have contacted us" As I said, they tend to use multiple systems but it wont take long to check names and NINO's against the SS register for example.

I didn't suggest returning the order, I suggest holding enforcement a couple days whilst the person claiming vulnerability provides proof, easy to do if genuinely vulnerable. Even if they have medical proof, the EA is not qualified to understand that proof, and what to a layman like me or the EA might not seem like vulnerability could very well be.

They really should have added in a line to the new act simply stating that an EA should upon a debtor claiming vulnerability immediately pass it to the vulnerable peoples dept & the council for investigation. Yes some people try it on, and under the above would simply not get away with it. An EA is not qualified to make decisions about vulnerability, and it should not be left to their discretion, especially when they have a vested interest in ignoring the vulnerability claim and continuing to attempt to enforce whilst at the door. The fact that the genuinely vulnerable could have their health severely impacted by the EA's behaviour far outweighs the "hassle" of the EA having to go away to investigate. Be interesting for a newspaper or TV people to make contact with people who are vulnerable and facing enforcement, to set up hidden cameras and see exactly what is going on, on the shop floor. I bet away from the film crew camera's, Bob Pinner's shower are far less likely to contact their vulnerability team......

The problem is I suspect many Councils use multiple systems, with little to zero intergration. I worked in 2 roles for a City Council. Bit of a long winded post, but its just to show how chaotic even a fairly modern city council making use of IT is in its deployment First was Out of Hours Emergency/Repair line, so we would send out a contracted gas engineer at 3am, or sat/sun afternoon in winter to fix a broken boiler, or act as liaison between Police & Highways to close off roads/perform cleanup after RTA's or other major incidents, and we had the Peace & Emergency phone, & equipment to set up emergency response room should a bomb go off/be threatened out of hours, or a Flood began occuring, that sort of stuff. Day staff used the main council system OASIS, but for some arcane reason we on OOH had no access to it, we used a special 3rd party Software, which would then be imported into OASIS by the day shift (well, one hopes, but frankly, & from repeat customers, not with much optimism.....) So for example, because we had no OASIS access, we couldn't tell if a Tenant was vulnerable, or had other issues, technically we werent supposed to "prioritise" but when it were a freezing cold Yorkshire Winter, and about -1 and we had a call from a very unwell sounding OAP who's literally freezing to death and a call from a 20 something whining not that she's cold, but that her "kid wont get a shower before school in the morning" (god forbid!!! ) well, we were only human, or we have a young guy who clearly sounds like or admits he has mental health issues, his window has just been smashed and he is freaking out that people might try and get in, vs a middle aged normal person with broken window, then again, only human etc, that was the more normal stuff where access to the proper system would have helped, that was bad enough, but the risk that lack of access, and the fact our nightly inputs werent often, if ever inputted put our Contractors into was unforgivable. the City was split into 4 "HA's" and each HA out of hours was covered by 1 gas plumber, 1 Joiner and 1 Electrician (though the sparkys often covered a couple of HA's) so these guys at night were literally on their own. IF we had OASIS access we would have gotten the "PV" Markers (Warning: Potentially Violent) which is attached to the files of people who have been violent to, or made threats of violence towards Council Staff. So we were frankly risking the contractors necks every time we sent them out, not having that access - in daytime where they can see the PV Markers, they would either send 2 contractors, a council security guard with a contractor, or if previous behaviour serious enough, Police with contractor, or arrange for 3rd party only to be present. And there were a few times where our contractor had to leg it, or the tenant had made threats on phone to us, so there was no way we were sending 1 guy on his own. Once a week at least , we would give an address, to get a "no way, we don't touch this one out of hours, he's attacked us before" or "the house is unsafe, they are junkies, and the floor is literally covered in needles, urine & faeces! ) So we would mark our file as PV or as unsafe for OOH Visit, but of course, as they never bothered consolidating if OASIS hadn't already got them logged... daytime contractors were in for fun and games. Ooh, they DID consolidate it once in a "busy" week where we marked 2 PV's, 1 from behaviour on phone, 1 as Contractor remembered address, and being attacked there, and 1 crack house, thus majorly unsafe, health, hygiene and unpredictibility of crackheads. And we got a very nasty email from some chinless twunt on Days asking why we were marking people as PV and contractors refusing to go!!!!!! the idiot genuinely thought we should send 1 person to a house where they had personally been attacked before by the tenant! Then I was in Building Services, much better run department, decent managers who cared about their staff and contractors, and where I bizarrely HAD OASIS access, to add invoices to properties for surveys our dept had carried out. So one job where we needed it, we didnt get it, the next, we didnt really need it, but got it. Social Services OOH shared a little building with us for a while at my OOH, and they too had to use a different system to the day staff, though I don't know if intergration was any better. They also only had 2 people to cover an entire city OOH, and man the phones when not out on a call. And I do recall that OASIS wasn't intergrated with Social Services. So a complete and utter mess, and I imagine most Councils are the same. Why have 1 simple, easy to use and view system, when you can have 3 or 4 complex, expensive ones? I can virtually guarantee that an automated process to trigger Brassnecked's suggestion would require an entirely new system, for each and every council. But there is no reason why an Admin bod can't sit there checking a list of names against the SS system.

And that's your life, like your arm, up the Swany... so to speak! But you might have a really good Legal Eagle, building a defense based on you being off in cloud cuckoo land

I call Foul on this bad pun!!

The Architects of the Empire's demise missed a boat there. Certain places like India where always going to go, but I bet, had the Government of the Day and Liz 2 put together the idea of a genuine, equal, democratic "Imperial Commonwealth", some sort of Federal system of regional/local autonomy with a Grand Imperial Senate as the Federal Body, elected from all the constituent nations, political hands would have been chewed off, and Imperial Declaration Signing Pens would have sold out. It is a remarkable fact of the British Commonwealth as it is in reality, that at least 2 of its members were never even PART of the British Empire! I think the hardest sell would have been to the British people of the time, equality would have absolutely have needed to be at the heart of it, thus, Great Britain itself would not have been the "Overlord" but simply another Dominion amongst the other dominions. It would have likely ended the "American Empire" and indeed the "American Century" very quickly. I did start writing a fun "alternate history" story based around the idea. the Rhodesian Rebellion/Succession by Ian Smith and his **** still happens, but ends a week or so later, after a landing by Imperial Kenyan and Kiwi Paratroops,

But a lot of people, esp businesses still pay in Cash. The Can't Pay's coming to beat the wont pay bailiff brigade of TV stardom are often shown sealing large amounts of cash into a clear plastic envelope

It wouldn't exactly be difficult at pre liability order stage to check names against a database, and think "ah, so and so has X issue, maybe an LO and EA action isn't the way to go yet" Aren't the Local Authoritiys supposed to check for vulnerability issues before sending off to EA anyway? They DON'T, but they are, or were supposed to.

Whilst they are a bit shyer of admitting it these days, one of MI6's "duties" and, rightfully so, imho is Industrial Espionage, both protecting British Companies from being the victims of it, and using it against foreign companies to benefit British ones, pretty much what any governmental Spy agency with portfolio for "abroad" will be expected to do. And who do you think gives them their IT Support? GCHQ has teams and teams of Software Engineers fully trained in Cyber Warfare, and to defuse a munition, whether a digital trojan or a physical artillery shell, you pretty much have to know how it works, and thus how to build one. Of course they are building trojans, spyware and other internet "nasties" its how they infiltrate online terrorist and rogue state networks. Look at that remarkable computer Virus that borked the Iranian nuclear programme, it certainly had "Made in Virginia" stamped all over it, and very likely "Made in Cheltenham" too.

I can see why you hold your point of view. Afterall, the 1930's version of your posts and "if your not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear" worked out really well for the Citizens of Germany between 1933 and 1945 Also worked out absolutely fine for any Russian from 1918 to 1990, or East European from 1945 to 1989. I have a fave if longish part of a speech from a SciFi/Dystopian/near future movie which I have edited, only by a very few words, but it is chilling how well it fits right now, except, this speech is against a Totalitarian Fascist Regime. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty, poverty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have Rupert Murdoch and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, Austerity, Terrorism, Immigration, Rising Crime. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to David Cameron and the Tories. They promised you an end to the EU, a living wage, the right to buy your council home, they promised you peace, and all they demanded in return was your vote and then your silent, obedient consent Your attitude is exactly the one that leads to innocent men and women being murdered by the State every single year in the USA. People who support Capital Punishment are HAPPY that innocent people are killed, because it means some genuine bad ones are too. Does it not concern you that British Police Constables are allowed to commit murder, even of an innocent man on live television, and get away with it? Is it not concerning that the possibility that a Constable may have lied about what an irate Tory minister said to him inflamed Parliament far more than the murder of an innocent newspaper seller on tv? Why should you or I stick to the Law, if the Government doesnt?

I am actually surprised that Criminals, whether organised, or just a group of smackheads/chancers aren't attempting to hold up EA's given they could well be carrying very large sums of money. Look how Robbery is pretty much an occupational hazard for the likes of Provident Loan's Collectors - hell, the stats of Provident Employees who rob the debtors they visit and their company alone likely make chilling reading for the Companies Board, nevermind outside "hits"!! I genuinely think it wont be long before organised crime is running "ANPR Vans" of their own, be plenty of people over on the darknet willing to hide opposite EA car parks at 5am to record van plates and sell the info on. Even a simple GPS tracker snuck under the vans/cars at 2am would do the trick - you can buy watches and so on with GPS trackers for your kids for under £30.

It seems to me that where a Debtor claims to be vulnerable, especially under MH issues, the most sensible thing to happen should be the EA, or at least their office refers the case immediately to a nominated person at the Council for immediate/urgent review. At the end of the day, a Local Authority, via a trained expert in its Social Services Department is going to understand the vulnerability issues being claimed vastly better than whichever Call Centre Drone, the EA's Office has sat down in front of a Wikipedia article for an hour, or whatever and shifted into the "Welfare Department" and can thus make a better judgement call as to whether EA enforcement should continue, and if so, how. Unless we are expected to believe that each EA Company has hired a fully trained and experienced Social Worker, and that seems unlikely, to me. Especially since the SS Department could very well already be dealing with, or know the person claiming vulnerability, and could say fairly quickly "aye, she's got serious MH issues, back off" or "oh god, not him, he's always trying it on, he's not vulnerable for purposes of enforcement..."

I wrote a couple of template letters regarding cold calling companies who must have gotten my details from another company. The general gist is "prove you have signed authority, ie a form filled in by me with a business partner of yours where I ticked I would like my details to go to "business partners" of theirs. Or to prove definitevly where they got my data from. I sent them, but sadly have never yet had the cash to test them on it, by threatening court for data protection breach etc.

But the point of the threat going ahead is to cover the debt, which it clearly does not. The HCEO's certainly make a big song and dance about how they have been "ordered by the court to attend and remove goods to cover the debt, however if you can pay, we wont take the goods" they are primarily there, or at least that is how they see it under the law to take goods, and it sounds like in theory could ignore cash and still take the goods. Therefore if they take goods that not only wont cover the debt, but will increase it, that is not attempting to pay the debt, but is enacting an illegal additional punishment against the Debtor.

I personally think Seizure in most cases is potentially a breach of the human rights act, or perhaps something else. The point of seizure is supposed to be to clear the debt, yet it is a well known fact that not only will most seizures not clear the debt, but will significantly increase it. That cannot be remotely right or fair, and could be argued as a cruel and unusual punishment being inflicted by the courts, despite being in debt not being a criminal matter.