I have responded to the Ministry of Justice's consultation on Default County Court Judgements (CCJs). This consultation was started in December 2017, because of: concern about the potential adverse impact of a County Court judgment on individuals who, unaware that a judgment had been made against them, found months or years later that their credit rating had been damaged. This article expands on … [Read more...]
CCJs
If a creditor takes you to court you will get a County Court Judgment (CCJ). This is not a criminal conviction, but it will badly damage your credit record and may lead to problems with bailiffs etc if you do not deal with it properly. In the first quarter of 2015, there were 209,000 CCJs - this is up over 20% on the number a year ago. It seems that debt collectors are going to court more often and for smaller amounts.
A creditor or debt collector may threaten to take you to court but they may just be bluffing. You need to know the facts, what to do if you do get court forms and what happens after you get a CCJ.
This page has all Debt Camel's posts about CCJs in date order. Also check out Worried about CCJ's - common questions and problems, which gives an overview with links to more detailed explanations.
MoJ consulting on default CCJs… but what about defaults?
The Ministry of Justice is consulting on the current processes in which someone has a judgment made against them without their knowledge. Finding a CCJ you knew nothing about on your credit record is a very unfair situation. People may only find out about a CCJ at an old address when their mortgage or other credit application is declined, or they fail a tenancy check. Here are some of the … [Read more...]
How to reply to a Letter Before Claim about a debt
A creditor has to send a Letter Before Claim before they take you to court for a debt in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This letter may be headed something like Letter Before Action or Notice of Pending Legal Action or even Letter of Claim. You can tell if you have been sent one of these as there will be various attachments including one headed Reply Form. This letter is part of the … [Read more...]
How to stop a debt being sent to the bailiffs
Are you worried about bailiffs? If you have problem debts, seeing programs like Can't pay? We'll take it away can be alarming. As one reader said: If I stop my direct debit and don't pay them this month surely they will not be happy? I don’t want bailiffs around my house. If you have already had a letter from a bailiff read: Bailiffs - do you have to let them in? What you need to know. This … [Read more...]