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Section 40: Punishment for unlawful harassment of debtors.

Administration of Justice Act 1970 · 1970 c. 31View on legislation.gov.uk

Part V: Miscellaneous Provisions

A person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under a contract, he—

harasses the other with demands for payment which, in respect of their frequency or the manner or occasion of making any such demand, or of any threat or publicity by which any demand is accompanied, are calculated to subject him or members of his family or household to alarm, distress or humiliation;
falsely represents, in relation to the money claimed, that criminal proceedings lie for failure to pay it;
falsely represents himself to be authorised in some official capacity to claim or enforce payment; or
utters a document falsely represented by him to have some official character or purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not.

A person may be guilty of an offence by virtue of subsection (1)(a) above if he concerts with others in the taking of such action as is described in that paragraph, notwithstanding that his own course of conduct does not by itself amount to harassment.

Subsection (1)(a) above does not apply to anything done by a person which is reasonable (and otherwise permissible in law) for the purpose—

of securing the discharge of an obligation due, or believed by him to be due, to himself or to persons for whom he acts, or protecting himself or them from future loss; or
of the enforcement of any liability by legal process.

Subsection (1) above does not apply to anything done by a person to another in circumstances where what is done is a commercial practice within the meaning of Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and the other is a consumer in relation to that practice.

A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than level 5 on the standard scale.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.