Expert County Court Judgment Removal Solicitors

A County Court Judgment (CCJ) is a judgment against you for a debt you have not paid.

If you have a CCJ, it means that someone has sued you and been successful – they have won their case against you and that they have entered COURT Judgment in their favour against you.

Consequently, this means that you are now legally liable to repay the amount of money that they have claimed against you. 

Depending upon the value of the debt which you are now legally obliged to pay, the Claimant can instruct High Court Sheriffs or Bailiffs to attend your property to seize goods. They also have the power to, in certain circumstances, enter your premises and make a list of the goods which can be taken away. 

Furthermore, they also have the facility to obtain a Court Order that a sum, to be determined, will be deducted from your wages. This is known as an Attachment of Earnings Order. Read more about this in our blog.

From the date that the CCJ is entered into your record, it will be 6 years from the first day until it is removed. 

Your CCJ will adversely affect your credit rating for the entire time.

Only if you pay it within 30 days of the CCJ being entered against you or prove to the courts that it was issued in error (and it gets cancelled).

If you do pay in full within 30 days, the CCJ should be automatically expunged from your record. Although, sometimes this does not happen, in which case we can apply to the court for you to cancel the CCJ.

If you do not pay, your CCJ will be added to a public database called the ‘Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines’ along with your name, address, your case and court number, and the amount of money you owe to the creditor.

Our answer is – not straight away. First of all, you should consider whether you in fact owe the money or not.

If you do, then the best solution may be to pay the amount or a reduced amount straight away. Though even if you pay your default CCJ, the court will mark the CCJ as paid but the CCJ will still remain on your credit file for 6 years and hold a negative effect on your credit file.

CCJs that are just paid off can therefore prevent you from getting better deals for Mortgages, Loans, Credit Cards, and Car Finance. Higher rates of interest will likely be applied, should you be approved for a credit application.

Moreover, paying the CCJ can also prevent it from being set aside, or removed when you could have.

You should therefore consider taking our free case assessment to see if you have strong legal grounds to have the CCJ removed. If that is the case, we can make an application to remove your CCJ on your behalf.

Paying off a CCJ on your record may sound like the best idea, but it reduces the chances of success in removing it.

Talk to our CCJ removal team before paying off a CCJ as you may:

• Not even owe them money
• Get it removed faster
• Owe less than they say!

A CCJ can have a huge impact on your life, no matter how trivial it may seem. The effects of a CCJ include being:

• Declined for all forms of credit,
• Stopped from obtaining a mortgage,
• Prevented from buying a house,
• Stopped from getting professional jobs,
• Bailiffs coming to your house,
• Cars being taken away,
• Household goods seized.

Even if you are financially responsible, you can have CCJs against your name without your knowledge. Often resulting from the chaos of a house move, when it’s easy to forget to update your utility provider, bank or phone company promptly.

Bills and CCJ claims are then sent to your old address and you have no chance to dispute the order or pay.

In some cases, you may have had CCJ claims sent to old addresses even though you have updated all the records. Unfortunately, claims for CCJs are automatically processed if there is no reply in 14 days.

You can always get finance, provided someone is prepared to offer you a deal. However, with a CCJ on your record, your credit rating will be diminished, potentially substantially. As a consequence, the type of lender who is prepared to offer you finance is likely to be subprime or even sub-subprime. 

The result of that is the amount of interest they will charge will be significantly higher. 

It is often the case that the cost of paying our fees to remove the CCJ is far outweighed over the life of a mortgage (or even just a few months) with a subprime lender. You should therefore consider having the CCJ removed.

Yes, once the CCJ has been removed from your Court record, it is as if it was never there. This should allow your credit history to be restored.

Yes, you can as a litigant in person. However, it can be daunting and confusing for any person involved in contested legal proceedings.

So, if you are daunted by the court system and don’t know how to proceed with the CCJ removal, we can do it for you swiftly and efficiently.

Our team of CCJ Removal Solicitors can do all of the work for you. So far, we have made over 10,000 applications and as solicitors, we can also appear in court for you. Our team are officers of the court and have rights of audience which set us apart from Debt Management Companies and paralegals that have no rights of audience.

If we succeed on your behalf, the CCJ will be removed and your credit rating restored in approx. 4-6 weeks (as the credit agencies catch up).

We are a team of fully trained paralegals and highly qualified litigation solicitors who can remove your CCJ on your behalf for a fixed fee. We do not charge hourly rates for this service.

The faster you act, the better your chances of success. Fill in our online CCJ removal forms to start the process now. We have recently added an online payment portal and a free file upload feature for your convenience.

Our services start from £480 (inc. vat) per CCJ

For Consented applications:

• 1 x CCJ (£599 inc vat) PLUS COURT FEE £119 if consent
• 2 x CCJ (£1098 inc vat) PLUS COURT FEE £ 119 if consent
• 3 x CCJ (£1399 inc vat)  PLUS COURT FEE £ 119 if consented application
• 4+ CCJ – POA plus court fee £ 119 per CCJ consented application

Contested applications

• £999 -1250 – Depending on the complexity of your case, plus advocacy fee approximately £350 plus court fee £303.

Defence drafted for £500-1000 inc. VAT depending on complexity.

On average, it takes between 10 – 14 weeks. 

However, this process can vary depending upon how much information you give us at the beginning and whether or not the Claimants respond to our enquiries promptly and/or adopt a reasonable or unreasonable response to our enquiries.

Once the CCJ is removed, it will most certainly improve your credit rating.

As soon as the CCJ is removed from your record, finance companies will no longer regard you as a bad risk. As a result, they will offer you more favourable interest deals.

Your credit score should rise – potentially by several hundred points, unlocking much more favourable credit offers.

This will depend upon negotiations with the creditor. However, most creditors are reasonable and simply want their money back.

If your instalments payments are always met, they will be more than willing to remove the CCJ. 

The key here is if a negotiated settlement is arrived at then you must stick to it. Otherwise, you will be in a worse position having already got a CCJ but then having eroded the good will, if any, of the Claimants who are unlikely to offer you payment terms again.

Solicitors are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). 

• You have peace of mind that a Solicitors practice is run by professionally qualified, legally trained, fully insured, and regulated persons. 
• Any fees that you pay them have to be properly accounted for. 
• You have the facilities to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman if you are unhappy with the service.

Furthermore, only fully regulated firms and persons are allowed to act for you in any Court Hearing. This is known as Rights of Audience. 

In addition to this, the Legal Services Act 2007 is very clear that certain activities are reserved activities. This means, therefore, that only regulated persons are entitled and allowed by law to do these particular tasks. One of the reserved activities is known as litigation. 

Only regulated persons such as Barristers, Solicitors or Legal Executives are allowed to take steps in litigation on your behalf.  This means that only regulated persons are allowed to write to the Court, appear at Court, send Applications to the Court, and negotiate with the other side on your behalf in respect of litigation.

Anyone who suggests that they can act on your behalf at Court who is not either a Solicitor, Barrister or Legal Executive is doing so unlawfully, contrary to the Legal Services Act 2007.

Follow this link to our CCJ Removal blog to learn more, including what to do when Bailiffs knock on your door.