County Court Judgement Debts


County Court Judgement (CCJ) is a Part of public information on your credit report and has a very serious impact on your credit score. Lenders usually do not prefer to lend someone with a CCJ on credit file.

What is County Court Judgement?

A County Court Judgment (CCJ) is a type of court order in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that might be registered against you if you fail to repay money you owe. In Scotland, the process is different, and called ‘enforcing a debt by diligence’. If you get a judgment, this means that the court has formally decided that you owe the money.

Unless you pay off a CCJ in full within 30 days of receiving the judgment, it will be entered on your credit record at the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. It’ll remain there for six years. This record can seriously affect your ability to get a mortgage, a credit card or even a bank account in the future. This is another reason it’s important you don’t ignore a County Court Judgment.

If you do not owe the money, you can ask the court to cancel, or ‘set aside’, the judgment. You can also do this if you did not receive, or did not respond to, the original claim from the court saying you owed the money. If you do owe the money, you should arrange to pay what you can afford. If you get a judgment do not ignore it - you could be taken back to court and forced to pay.

We have seen many cases where CCJ was taken in last 6 years however, the defendant remained unaware of the CCJ being taken. In these types of cases, the CCJ is usually disclosed when a credit application is declined owing to adverse information on the credit report. The reasons for which the CCJ remained undisclosed can be but not limited to the following:

  • CCJ was taken at the defendant’s pervious address
  • The defendant did not receive any court form etc
  • CCJ was taken against company but the director’s name was also on the court papers
  • CCJ was taken against a traffic fine and the defendant did not receive court papers
How can we Help to Avoid Receiving a CCJ or Getting CCJ Set Aside

Please speak to us if you are struggling to make your repayments against your debts. We can make offers on our behalf and usually we are able to come to an arrangement that allows you to go on making payments you can afford and avoid court action.

If you think a debt is disputed and yet count action has been taken against you then we can help you make the defence against the claim.

If you have received a claim form and the debt is binding on you then you can either settle it in 30 days or if you cannot afford to settle it in lumpsum, we can help you to develop a repayment plan with your lender against the debt under Tomlin Order. Once sealed by the court, the CCJ will not appear against your name as far as you will adhere to the clauses of the order.

If a CCJ has been taken against your name in last 6 years and you believe court forms were not served to you or they were sent to a wrong address, we can still help you in following ways:

  • If you legally owe the debt, then we can make a lumpsum settlement with your lender and obtain a Consent Order on your behalf after the CCJ debt has been settled. Once the consent order has been sealed by the court, the CCJ will be set aside from your name.
  • If you believe the debt is not owed by you and the CCJ was taken at some previous address, then we can help you fill the N244 form along with witness statement to get the CCJ set Aside.