1. Attachment of Earnings

If the creditor has a CCJ then you could apply for an Attachment of Earnings Order. This would only apply if the debtor is employed. This is a court order compelling the debtor’s employer to make a deduction from the debtor’s earnings which is then paid to the court. The amount of the deductions will depend on the debtor’s earnings taking into account the protected earnings threshold. Provided an order is made, deductions will then be made until such time as the debt is paid in full or the debtor’s employment comes to an end.

2. Charging Order

If the debtor owns a property, then you may be able to have the debt secured against the property. Once a charging order is granted by the court, this is registered at H M Land Registry to protect the creditors position should the property be sold. Once a charging order has been obtained, you can consider making an application to the court for an order for sale to determine the monies owed or alternatively allow the charge to remain on the property until such time as the property is sold. The debtor may not always have sufficient equity in the property to discharge the debt, but this is often a useful tool to use in pressurising a debtor to pay.

3. Statutory Demand

A Statutory Demand is a demand for money you are owed under a CCJ ,which states that you intend to issue Bankruptcy Proceedings against the debtor if the debt is not paid within 21 days or you fail to reach an agreement to pay. At present the bankruptcy petition minimum amount is £5,000 for an individual and the winding up petition amount is £750 for company. This is an expensive option and there is no guarantee of any return after a bankruptcy order has been made.

4. Enforcement Officer

An Enforcement Officer will attend the debtor’s property with a view to obtaining payment either by accepting payment and/or taking goods to the value of the claim to be sold at auction. An Enforcement Officer can not force entry into a residential property and therefore this option can be problematic if the debtor refuses to engage.

If your Creditor has taken you to Court they may have obtained a county court judgement against you. This is where the Court have ordered you to pay a sum of money to the Creditor. This entails you making arrangements to repay the debt as a lump sum or by way of instalments.

A Creditor can obtain a further Court order called a Charging Order. This order secures the debt against your home or any other property that you own. Once the Charging Order has been obtained, a Creditor can apply to the Court for permission to sell your home/property to determine the money owed to them.

To apply for a Charging Order there are two stages. These are an interim order and a final order. An interim order is granted by the court without you knowing an application has been made. This allows your Creditor the opportunity to register the Charging Order with the Land Registry to prevent you from selling the property in question without your Creditor being notified. The interim order must be served not only on you but any joint owners of the property along with any Creditors who have registered a mortgage and/or any other security with the Land Registry.

Before making an interim order final, the Court must be satisfied that all relevant parties have been served with the interim order correctly. If the Court receives no written objections to the interim order within the time allowed, it will make a final order and once again your Creditor will register this with the Land Registry to secure their position.

If you object to the interim order being made final, the Court will list the matter for a hearing allowing all parties to attend before a District Judge in order that evidence can be heard from all parties where the Court will decide whether a final order should be made.

When considering if the interim order should be made final, the court must consider all of the circumstances of the case and your personal situation before making a decision. You should make the Court aware of how much equity there is in your property. This is the amount of profit you would make if the property was sold and any debts registered against it were paid off. If there is little or no equity, your Creditor would not benefit from a final charging order and the court may decide to refuse the application.

It may also be the case that other creditors are allowing you to repay the debt by way of instalments over a period of time rather than asking the court to make a charging order. You may be able to argue that it is not necessary to grant such an order if other Creditors do not think it is necessary, especially if others are owed more money.

You may also be able to argue that there are other ways in which the debt can be repaid, such as an instalment order, attachment of earnings order to name a few.

If a final order is made your Creditor can either wait until you sell the property or apply to the Court for an Order for Sale to determine the money owed to them.

There is a possibility that you can ask the Court to put conditions on the final charging order such as that the Creditor can not apply for an Order for Sale within a certain time frame or subsequently you may be able to ask the court to amend the conditions if appropriate.

If the debt in question is repaid to the Creditor in satisfaction of the final charging order, any restrictions or unilateral notices registered at the Land Registry should be removed immediately by your Creditor making the appropriate application to them. They should then provide you with evidence that all notices have been removed from the Land Registry records.

In the event that you receive an interim charging order from the court, you should take this very seriously and obtain legal advice as to the consequences of the order. If you ignore the order, the Court will make a final charging order and you are then at risk of loosing your home/property.

We can assist in considering what steps you can take to resist such an application and/or assist in trying to resolve matters with your Creditor.

Summerfield Browne have offices in Leicester, Birmingham, London, Oxford, Cambridge and Market Harborough.

If you receive a letter in the post from the court telling you that a claim has been issued how can you tell if the letter is genuine? There are several steps that you can take to assess this.

1. Court claims can be issued using a local court and can also be issued from one of two administrative centres. The administrative centres are the County Court Money Claims Centre, PO box 527, Salford, M5 0BY and the County Court Business Centre at St. Katharine’s House, 21-27 St. Katharine’s Street, Northampton, NN1 2LH. Local courts are also empowered to issue claims but, in our experience, clients who are defending money claims find that the claims have been issued from either the County Court Money Claims Centre (the CCMCC) or the County Court Business Centre (CCBC).

2. If you receive a claim form in the post, you have a limited time to reply. Check the ‘date of service’ as time usually runs from this date. If you are responding to a money claim you may be able to use a website called Money Claim Online and the link to the website may appear on the Claim Form itself with a unique passcode allowing you to log in and reply to the claim.

3. The Claim Form will have a Claim Number on it. This usually appears on the top right of the form and is usually a series of letters and numbers.

4. If the Claim Form has been issued by the Court, it should bear the court’s seal. This is a stamp that the court use and is usually a round stamp with a crown in the middle.

Consequences of ignoring a claim

If you ignore the claim when it is issued/fail to respond in time, then the Claimant (the person/company who issued the claim) can obtain what is known as a default judgment. This means that the Claimant has obtained a County Court Judgment (a CCJ). The Claimant can then commence enforcement of the CCJ. If you do miss the deadline to defend the claim, then all is not lost. You could still potentially make an application to the court to set aside the CCJ explaining the reasons for not replying in time.

How we can help

If you have received a Claim Form in the post do not delay as there is a limited time to respond. We can assist you in responding to the Claim and help with the preparation of your Defence. If you have missed the deadline to respond then we can provide advice on applying to set aside the County Court Judgment and assist you with the application to the Court to allow you the opportunity to Defend the Claim.

Summerfield Browne have offices in Leicester, Birmingham, London, Oxford, Cambridge and Market Harborough.

Have you recently received a County Court Judgment (CCJ) for a Parking charge notice that you were not aware of until you went to apply for a mortgage or credit card?

With many companies now using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to issue tickets directly to motorists you often are not aware that you have received a parking fine until a later date. When a default County Court Judgement is received by a motorist it is often because:

1. They ignored letters from the court about the claim being made against them

or

2. The letters were sent to the wrong address

Summerfield Browne Solicitors are frequently instructed in relation to CCJ’s for unpaid parking charges and have recently been successful in applying to set aside a CCJ issued on behalf of Parking eye.

It is worth remembering that creditors (such as banks and loan companies) use this information to determine whether or not to give loans or credit and a CCJ will appear on your credit history and the Record of Judgments for 6 years if it is not set aside.

Summerfield Browne have offices in Leicester, Birmingham, London, Oxford, Cambridge and Market Harborough.

Do you have a CCJ that you need to set aside?

Our case study below regarding a recent claim shows the way that we can assist with your dispute.

We successfully acted for a client in a successful dispute resolution to set aside a CCJ by consent. Jewson withdrew the claim and there was no liability for costs for our client.

Summerfield Browne have offices in Leicester, Birmingham, London, Oxford, Cambridge and Market Harborough.