Why do bailiffs demand payment in cash or bank transfer?

Chargeback risk

Cheques are promissory notes and can be cancelled.

Bailiffs are at risk of stopped cheques, and card chargebacks, but they might accept them if there is no alternative.

If a car is taken, the bailiff will usually demand a bank transfer because it is much harder to reverse.

Bailiffs make it deliberately harder to re-take control of a vehicle by demanding cash or bank transfer, because they make a profit on high storage fees.

This policy can be an own goal bailiffs, because the debtor or payer litigates the creditor the bailiff is acting for, and they recover their losses and the claimants costs from the bailiff companies public liability insurer.

Bailiffs demand storage fees to be paid separately from the debt and the statutory enforcement fees.

Storage fees paid in this way may be recovered because its evidence the bailiff has not been disbursed - reasonably and actually incurred.^[1] The bailiff cannot show the flow of money proving the disbursement is "actual".^[2]

^{[1] Regulation 8(2) of the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014
[2] See Applying for a detailed assessment}