County Court Judgement

County court judgments are generally issued if a debtor has failed to keep a repayment arrangement with their creditors.

Once a debtor has failed to keep up their repayments, a creditor is required by law to issue a default notice before any further action can be carried out.

Once a default notice has been issued, creditors will follow their debt recovery procedures to either come to a new repayment arrangement with the debtor or they may choose to issue a county court judgement to recover monies owed.

Creditors must apply to the court for a claim form to be issued against the debtor. The debtor will receive the claim form, and must fill in the admissions form, including details of their income and expenditure so that a repayment amount can be arranged.

If you receive a claim form you should seek professional legal advice. You must not ignore the claim form as this will likely lead to a judgement in default whereby the court will order that you repay the full amount straight away.

You can also make an offer of payment on the form. If you can only pay £1 a month to your creditors, then you must put that on the Admission Form. The amount you offer to pay is not automatically accepted and you must justify your offer of payment along with your income and expenditure, including repayments you make each month to other creditors.

The court will take into account your financial circumstances and will ensure an amount is set that you can afford.

You must ensure that you keep to the repayment plan or further action may be taken against you. If you find the repayment is set too high, you can apply for a variation order.

A variation order enables you to request a lower, more affordable monthly repayment to your creditors.

County court judgements generally stay on your credit file for 6 years from the date they were first registered.

The exception to this is if the debt was paid in full within one month of the judgement being set. In this case, no record of the CCJ should appear on your credit file. If it does, you can write to the credit reference agency requesting them to remove it.

If the debt is paid before the 6 years have passed, you can request for the debt to be marked as "Satisfied" on your credit file.