What to do if you get a Claim Form

If you receive a Claim Form from a County Court through the post you need to respond rapidly. Ignoring court papers is a bad idea, even if you can’t possibly pay the money. If you agree you owe the money you will get a County Court Judgment (CCJ) but if you complete the Claim Form papers properly you will be able to make monthly payments and won’t get visits from bailiffs. If you don’t agree you owe the money, you need to defend the Claim.

Check this really is a court form

Some debt collectors write carefully worded letters designed to make you think  you are being taken to court! If you get one of these, read Threats of CCJs and bailiffs – are debt collectors bluffing?

A real N1 Court Form may be on white paper or on blue and white paper. It will have something like this at the top:

and a court stamp something like this:

In the same pack, you should have received all the following: N1 – Claim form; N9 – Response pack; N9A – Admission (specified amount);  N9B – Defence and counterclaim. There should be a court name (usually this is  Northampton County Court) and a claim number.

If you aren’t sure, you can phone the court to check or phone National Debtline on 0808 808 4000 and ask them.  National Debtline have an excellent section on their website about court action and CCJs.

If it is a real county court Claim Form, then check you are named as the Defendant on the form.  If you aren’t, follow the advice here about debt letters for other people coming to your house. NB if your name is slightly wrong (a typo? your maiden name?) you should treat this as though it is correctly addressed to you.

You should have received a Letter Before Claim about the debt. If you did and you ignored, it it is too late now to reply to that letter, you need to use the Response Pack which came with the Claim Form to reply. If you didn’t receive this letter, or it was a long while ago, contact National Debtline and ask for advice.

So the form is real and it’s addressed to you

First, don’t panic! Some worries you may have:

• this is not a criminal matter – if the court decides you owe the money, you will get a County Court Judgment.  CCJs aren’t a criminal conviction and you can’t be sent to prison for not paying the types of debts (loans, credit cards etc) that lead to this type of court action.
• if you respond to the court papers promptly as described in this article, you are not going to get bailiffs coming round to your house.

Do you agree you owe the money?

Often you know immediately which debt the form is referring to, but sometimes a debt may have been assigned to someone else – this is legal jargon for selling your debt.  The new owner of the debt is entitled to sue you for the money – you don’t have to have agreed to the debt being sold.  

If you don’t recognise the debt, call up the claimant and ask about it. You may feel nervous about being pressurised to agree to something, but make it clear you just want to know more details of the debt, then end the call when you get them. If you still don’t think the debt is your, you must reply to the Claim (unless the creditor tells you in writing that they are withdrawing the Claim. Over the phone is not good enough.)

If you recognise the debt, do you accept that you should pay the money? It’s not just whether you borrowed the money, what is important here is that the creditor can win the case. there is a lot of legal protection for consumers, especially for old debts. There could be many reasons for this, including:

• the amount is wrong – perhaps you paid some money recently which hasn’t been taken into account;
• you have already paid the debt off – possibly several years ago;
• for credit cards (including store cards and catalogues) and loans (including HP and payday loans) the creditor has to be able to produce a copy of the written agreement for the debt. See National Debtline’s Getting information about a debt for details. That tells you how to ask for this information and you should do this asap, BUT ALSO reply to the Claim, see You need to reply quickly below for details;
• the money was for some goods or services where there was something wrong and it’s not right that you should pay;
• you have gone bankrupt and the debt should have been wiped out by that, or the debt was included in a DRO or an IVA;
• the debt is statute-barred so the claimant can’t go to court about it because it is so old, see Questions about Statute-Barred Debt for more information;
• the claimant owes you money. This means that you have a counterclaim against the claimant, which can be decided by the court at the same time as the claim against you.

How to dispute the debt

If you don’t recognise the debt or you don’t agree you owe the money or you have a counterclaim, you must complete the Defence Form (N9B). Unless you are very confident about this, I suggest that you should phone National Debtline and ask for their help.

Don’t worry if the court is listed as Northampton County Court – if there has to be a court hearing you can ask for this to be in your local County Court.

You need to send the Defence Form back within 14 days. If you would like more time to sort this out you should complete and send back the Acknowledgement of Service form ( N9CPC) within the 14 days and you then have 28 days from when you received the forms to return the Defence Form.

It is important that you put in your defence within the given time. If you don’t, the court will usually award a CCJ “in default” because you didn’t defend the case. You can apply to have this set aside, but the fee for this went up in March 2016 to £255.

What to do if you owe the money and can pay it all

If you can pay the full amount, then you should complete the Admission Form (N9A) but you don’t need to give details about your income and expenses. You should fill in:

• the box which says How much of the claim do you admit
• Section 1 Personal details
• the box which says Section 11 Offer of Payment
• Section 12 Declaration – sign and date this

and you should send the form back  within 14 days with your cheque. If you do this, you will not get a CCJ on your credit record. (This is not a reason to pay up and keep quiet if you have good grounds for disputing the debt. If you defend the case and lose, you still have the option then of paying the money in full within 30 days and the CCJ will then be removed from your record.)

What to do if you owe the money but need to pay in monthly instalments

Here you need to complete the Admission Form (N9A):

• the box which says How much of the claim do you admit,
• Section 1 Personal details
• Section 2,3,4,5 about your family and financial situation
• Section 6,7,8,9,10 about your income, expenditure and other debts (make sure that all your incomes and expenses are quoted as per month or per week, so that you can add them up)
• the box which says Section 11 Offer of Payment
• Section 12 Declaration – sign and date this

For more information about filling in this form see How much should I offer to a CCJ?

If the creditor accepts your offer, you will get a notice that you have a CCJ and should make the monthly payment that you have proposed.  If the creditor refuses your offer, it gets sent to the court to determine how much you should pay; this is usually done without a hearing. It is common for courts to accept your offer of payment, especially if you have taken advice about how much to offer and how to complete the form.

Where to send the forms

If you are defending the claim, send the forms to the court. If you admit the claim, send the forms to the Address for sending documents on the N1 Claim form. In either case, take a copy of the forms and send them recorded delivery.

You need to reply quickly!

The time limits for replying are strict. If you don’t reply in time, you don’t get another chance, there won’t be a court case even if you have asked the creditor for more information and they haven’t replied. What happens is you get a CCJ “in default” because the rules assume that you will only not reply if you owed the money.

You only have 14 days to reply. But if you complete the Acknowledgement of Service section at any point within the 14 days, the 14 days is changed to 28 days. So do this as soon as possible, there is no downside to doing this at all.

Time for a rethink?

If you have been avoiding tackling a larger debt situation then getting these court papers is a warning that you should have a rethink.  Read up about possible debt options here first, try to list all your debts and have a first stab at doing a budget, then ring National Debtline or go to your local CAB.

If you are in a DMP, then it might also be wise to think if it is going well. Is your debt dropping? How long will the DMP last? If the debt is large and you have equity in your house, it is possible the creditor is using a CCJ as the first step to try to get a charge over your house.

What happens next if I do get a CCJ?

I’ve done another article on this, see link below. For now the important thing is to complete and return the forms correctly, as this will minimise your problems later on.