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An attachment of earnings order is an order made by the court which allows a creditor who has obtained a County Court Judgment against you to take payments to discharge the debt due under the Judgment directly from your wages.

An attachment of earnings order will only be made when a creditor has successfully obtained a County Court Judgment against you. For the Court to make an attachment of earnings order, you must have failed to make one or more payments due under a County Court Judgment and owe more than £50.

A creditor can only make an application to the Court for an Attachment of Earnings Order if you are in employment and cannot make the order if you are either self employed or receiving benefits.

When a creditor has made an application to the court for an attachment of earnings order, the court will either order you to pay all of the money owed under the County Court Judgment or alternatively order you to provide information on your employment status, as well your income and outgoings.

If you receive a form requesting this information, you must fill it in immediately. If you fail to fill in this form, the court may in the first instance try to contact you, or may send out a bailiff to serve an order requiring you to provide the information.

If you still fail to provide the information requested, the court can then issue a warrant and send out a Bailiff to bring you to the Court to provide the information.

The court will not usually order you to pay more than you can afford. Once the court receives the ‘Statement of means’ and the information on your financial status, it will consider the information which you have provided and decide if there is a manageable amount which you can pay to the creditor over a period of time to ensure that the debt due under the judgment is paid.

You can apply to the court to suspend the order, which means, if agreed, that you will be requested to make payments directly to your creditor. If the court agrees to grant a suspended order, you must keep up these payments, otherwise the order will be sent to your employer.

If the attachment of earnings order is sent to your employer, then the amount which the Court has ordered you to pay will be deducted from your wages and sent to the Court. The order will then continue to remain in place until all money owed to the creditor has been paid in full. This will also include any additional charges which your creditor may have incurred from obtaining the order.