General Powers of Officials to Enter Your Home

Officials are subject to different rules of procedure because each is governed by a different statutory source, and there is no general code which covers their conduct. Normally any official must produce evidence of identity and authority before entering and may not insist on entering without first giving you at least 24 hours’ notice. If, after such notice, you refuse to let him or her in, the Magistrates’ Court may give authority to enter without your consent, by force if necessary. In general, if someone asks to come into your home, claiming to be an official, you should:

Ask to see the caller’s identity card.
Ask the caller what authority he or she has to enter your home.
If in doubt, refuse entry and contact the office from which the official claims to come, in order to check his or her credentials.

I f you have a complaint to make about the way an official behaves, you should approach the appropriate authority. For example, in the case of a local authority official, you should complain to your local councillor, in the case of a gas or electricity official, the Gas or Electricity Company. In the case of a VAT inspector, the collector in charge of VAT at the local office or, in the case of a tax inspector, the Commissioners for the Inland Revenue. There may also be the possibility of a complaint to an official regulator or an ombudsman.

For further information on this, see also the section on How to Get Redress

It is also important to remember that all public authorities seeking to exercise powers of entry under various Acts will still be required to act compatibly with Article 8 rights as incorporated by the HRA. This means that whenever a decision is made that will result in an intrusion of your privacy - a decision to enter into your home without your consent - then the public authority must do so in accordance with the law and for one of the legitimate objectives. Also the nature of the entry must be proportionate to the need for such entry. It may well be possible to challenge a decision to enter your home if the public authority concerned does not observe these principles.

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