A notice of enforcement is the letter that tells you enforcement agents are coming. It is not a threat and it is not a negotiating position. It is the formal step the law requires before anyone can take control of your goods, and it starts a clock.
Since 1 May 2026 that clock is longer than it used to be. The minimum notice period rose from 7 clear days to 14 clear days. If you are working from older guidance, or from a letter template someone drafted years ago, you will have the wrong date in your head.
How Long Does a Notice of Enforcement Give You?
At least 14 clear days before an enforcement agent can take control of goods. That is the minimum set by regulation 6 of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, as amended from 1 May 2026. A creditor can give you longer. None can give you less.
“Clear days” is a term of art, and it works in your favour. You do not count the day the notice was given, and you do not count the day of the visit. Sundays, Good Friday, Christmas Day and bank holidays do not count either. So 14 clear days is always more than a fortnight on the calendar, and over a bank holiday weekend it can stretch to nearly three weeks.
Work out your own date from the notice rather than from the agent’s letter. Enforcement firms are not always quick to update their standard wording, and a letter written to the old seven-day rule is not a defence for turning up early — but it is a reason to check.
The 28-Day Extension, and Why It Probably Does Not Apply to Your Company
The 2026 changes also created a longer window. If a debt advice provider makes a request on the debtor’s behalf before the notice period runs out, the minimum extends to 28 clear days. That is a genuine breathing space for someone dealing with a personal debt.
It does not cover business debt. If the debt is your company’s — unpaid VAT, PAYE, corporation tax, a judgment debt from a supplier — the extension is not available to you, and you are working to 14 clear days. Directors sometimes read about the 28-day rule and assume they have a month. They do not.
Who Can Send One, and What They Need First
Not every creditor who is owed money can send enforcement agents to your door. A creditor needs an enforcement power first, and for most of them that means going to court.
- Ordinary creditors — a supplier, a landlord chasing a money judgment, a lender — must obtain a judgment and then a warrant of control from the County Court or a writ of control from the High Court. Without one, an agent has no authority to take control of anything, whatever the letter says.
- HMRC does not need a court order for most unpaid taxes. It can move straight to enforcement on its own authority. That is the single biggest practical difference between HMRC and everybody else, and it is why HMRC debt escalates faster than trade debt.
- A commercial landlord recovering unpaid rent uses Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery, which runs through the same Schedule 12 procedure and the same notice rules. It is available only for principal rent, and only where the arrears meet the statutory minimum.
If you receive a notice from a firm acting for an ordinary creditor and you have never seen a claim form or a judgment, that is worth challenging before the period runs out. It happens more often than it should.
What the Notice Must Contain
The notice is a prescribed document, not a free-form letter. It must identify you and the creditor, state the debt and how it is made up, state the enforcement power being used, give the date and time by which you must pay, and set out the fees that will be added if you do not. It must also tell you how to get free debt advice.
A notice missing those elements is defective. That does not make the debt go away, and it is rarely a reason to ignore the letter, but it is a lever — and if you are going to use it, use it inside the notice period rather than after the agents have been.
What Enforcement Costs You
Enforcement fees are fixed by regulation and added to your debt at each stage. They also rose on 1 May 2026. For enforcement under a County Court warrant or by HMRC:
| Stage | What triggers it | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Compliance | The notice of enforcement is sent | £79 |
| Enforcement | An agent attends your premises | £247, plus 7.5% of any debt above £1,900 |
| Sale | Goods are removed for sale | £116, plus 7.5% of any debt above £1,900 |
The number that matters is the first one. Paying inside the notice period costs you £79. Letting an agent attend costs you £247 plus a percentage. On a £20,000 debt, one visit adds £1,604.50 before a single item is sold. That gap is the whole argument for dealing with the notice on the day it arrives.
What You Can Do Inside the Notice Period
Fourteen clear days is short, but it is long enough to change the outcome. Realistically you have four options, and they are not mutually exclusive.
- Pay it. If the money exists, this is the cheapest move available and the only one that stops the fees at £79.
- Ask for time. HMRC may still consider a Time to Pay arrangement at this stage, though it is a harder conversation once enforcement has started than before. Other creditors may accept instalments to avoid the cost and delay of a visit.
- Challenge it. If the debt is disputed, already paid, or the enforcement power is defective, say so in writing now. An application to the court can suspend enforcement, but it needs to be made promptly.
- Take formal advice. If the company cannot pay this debt and cannot pay the next one either, the notice is a symptom rather than the problem. A licensed insolvency practitioner can tell you whether the business is rescuable through a CVA or administration, or whether a Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation is the honest answer.
What you should not do is wait to see whether they turn up. They generally do, and the cost of finding out is £247 plus a percentage of the debt.
The First Visit
An agent’s first attendance is usually not a removal van. The purpose is to take control of goods, which normally means listing items whose sale would cover the debt and the fees, and then leaving them with you under a controlled goods agreement.
That agreement is a contract. You acknowledge that the listed goods are under the agent’s control, you agree not to remove or sell them, and you agree a repayment schedule. The schedule is negotiated, not fixed by statute — there is no automatic further grace period, and any figure you are quoted is the agent’s terms rather than the law’s.
Sign it and you keep trading with your own equipment. Break it and the agent can return, remove the goods without further notice, and force entry to commercial premises to do so. Refuse to sign and they can remove the goods there and then.
Enforcement agents may not force entry into a private home to recover a company debt, and may not enter a home at all except in limited circumstances that do not apply to ordinary business debt. If your registered office is your house, that distinction matters and is worth taking advice on.
What Can and Cannot Be Taken
The rules on exempt goods are strict and agents must follow them. An agent cannot take:
- anything the company does not own outright — leased, hired or on finance, and goods still subject to retention of title;
- fixtures and anything that would be damaged by removal;
- items necessary for the safety of the premises, such as fire extinguishers and alarms;
- tools, books, vehicles and equipment needed for the trade, up to a statutory value cap;
- perishable goods, and goods belonging to someone else.
Ownership is where most disputes are won. If plant, vehicles or IT are on lease or finance, have the agreements ready before the agent arrives. Producing them on the day is far easier than recovering goods that have already gone.
If goods are removed, the agent must serve a notice of sale telling you when the sale will happen and how to stop it. Goods must normally be held for at least seven clear days before sale.
The Honest Reading of a Notice of Enforcement
From the office-holder’s chair, a notice of enforcement is rarely the first sign of trouble and almost never the last. By the time HMRC reaches this stage it has usually sent demands, made contact, and been ignored or fobbed off. The notice means the informal route is finished.
If you can clear the debt without starving the business of working capital, clear it. If you can only clear it by not paying next month’s VAT, you are not solving anything — you are choosing which creditor to fail, and continuing to trade while insolvent carries personal consequences for you under the wrongful trading rules. That is the conversation to have inside the 14 days, not after the goods have gone.