In the interests of clarity, this site DOES NOT advocate or condone breaking of the law. If you want to keep watching TV live or recorded as live, keep paying your TV licence fee. However, if you’ve decided to only watch catch-up shows and wish to avoid being harassed repeatedly by TV Licensing operatives, these are your rights: 1. TV Licensing staff call themselves “officers” but are simply ordinary private citizens employed by Capita and have NO LEGAL RIGHT OF ACCESS TO YOUR HOME. If they knock at the door and ask to be admitted, you don’t have to let them in (unless they’re accompanied by a police officer with a warrant). It doesn’t matter whether you’re the homeowner or a tenant. You do not have to answer any questions they ask. If you do let them in you still don’t have to comply with any requests they make, or sign any forms they produce. 2. It doesn’t matter if your TV is capable of receiving broadcasts or not. You don’t need to detune it or disconnect the aerial (you could legally be using it to only receive radio). To be guilty of an offence you actually have to be caught in the act of watching a live/as-live broadcast without a licence. In practice, the only way this can happen is if you allow a TV Licensing operative into your home voluntarily, or they look through the window and see you doing so. (So if you live in a 10th-floor flat, that’s not going to happen.) 3. If you own your home you may withdraw the “implied right of access” to your home by writing to TV Licensing doing so. TVL operatives then may not even approach your property. If you’ve decided to stop paying, you should formally notify TV Licensing by filling in the appropriate form, which will also enable you to receive a refund for any payments already made in advance.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 16:37:45 +0000