Jun
24
It isn’t just the fiasco with giving Visa sole right to the Olympic games, that is making me “Mr Angry” today – it is also a tiff with TV Licensing that is raising my blood pressure to unnatural highs.
Yesterday evening there was a knock on the door. It was an inspector from TV Licensing demanding to know why we hadn’t got a TV license. Well he was in for an earful, as I’ll explain.
We moved house just under four weeks and when we arrived here, there was a letter from TV licensing saying that their records showed that there was no license for this house.
True, the previous people had moved to Australia about six weeks before, but we, of course, had a valid license for our old house.
Anyway, I thought little about it until about a week ago a more nasty letter from TV licensing arrived, this time saying that they had passed our case to an enforcement inspector. At this point, I dug out our license and went through the painful process of informing TV Licensing of our change of address and that we had a valid license.
Then last night, that knock on the door from the inspector…
I told him that I had already informed TV Licensing and showed him our valid license for the old address. “No problem sir – everything’s fine, sorry to trouble you etc etc”, he said.
“Everything is not fine by me”, I said. “Your crappy administrative systems have resulted in me being visited by an enforcement inspector and my records being flagged in your system as not complying with the law. This process has now put you on my doorstep, inconveniencing me and my family”.
That was the start of his earache because I wanted to know more about the enforcement processes for TV licensing. This is what I found out from him:
The inspector was tasked by the system two weeks in advance, so even if you act to inform TV licensing that you have a license within that time, you get the visit anyway, as we did.
If you are out or away on holiday then there will be a card left so the onus is one you to then phone them to arrange another visit. I bet that’s an 0870 number, or other chargeable number, too.
The enforcement department have a number if undisclosed steps to follow before “things get nasty” he said. If their administrative systems are as inefficient as they seem, then I would fear that some of the steps could happen pretty quickly and be hard to stop.
By the way, if you don’t have a TV, then they have the right to enter your home (but only if you allow them to) to inspect every room to check that there are no televisions and verify that you do not need a license.
The biggest issue is that you are considered guilty and have to prove your innocence. I thought that goes against the central tenants of our legal system.
The most worrying aspect about all of this is how quickly the process starts and how difficult it is to stop, and perfectly innocent, law abiding people could get ground up in the administrative cogs of their machine.
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One Response to “TV Licensing – Quick On The Trigger To Check Up On You”
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They have no right to enter your home at all; one invites them in as any other guest.
They are required to leave your premises/home the moment you make it clear to them you want them to go.
Owning a television (or any number of TVs for that matter) does not and has never required a TV licence; that’s not what’s licensable.
A well-expressed piece otherwise, Mr Ray, and a pleasure to read it.
Marcus
forum member of tvlicenceresistance.com