Get a Court Judgment Taken Off the CCJ Register

When a county court judgment is entered against you, you are undoubtedly going to be concerned at how it will affect your credit rating. The truth is, there are only limited circumstances in which you can have a county court judgment removed. Paying the debt is unlikely to be sufficient, and you are likely to have to initiate the removal yourself.

A County Court Judgment is entered against you in the ‘Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines.’ This happens if proceedings have been issued at the county court, and:

• you then admit the claim, or
• the claimant successfully applies for summary judgment or judgment in default, or
• judgment is entered against you after a final hearing

At this point, the CCJ will be entered against you and will remain on the register for six years.

Paying Within 30 Days

If you pay the full amount of the judgment within 30 days of its issue, the judgment will be marked as ‘satisfied.’ If you do this, do not assume that the CCJ will automatically be removed from the register. The creditor may do you the courtesy of informing the court that you have paid the judgment, but then again - they may not. In this situation, the best thing to do is to tell the court yourself. There are three steps to take:

• search the register to see if your judgment is recorded (you can do this by entering into a search engine ‘search the county court register’). There is a small fee involved.
• If the CCJ is on the register, make sure you have proof that you have paid the debt (you could get this from the creditor)
• contact the court and ask them for the form to remove it, fill it in and send it back with the fee (this is £10.)

Having the Judgment Set Aside

If you have not paid the judgment within the 30 day period, in limited circumstances you may be able to have the judgment set aside. This is the appropriate course of action if the CCJ was entered into the register wrongly, for example, the amount of money that the creditor says you owe is wrong or if you did not owe the creditor money at all (and you can prove it.) It is also important to note that setting the county court judgment aside does not end the matter. Although this CCJ may be set aside, it does not prevent the creditor from issuing another set of proceedings against you. Again, if judgment is entered against you and you don’t pay the amount within 30 days the new judgment will be on your credit report for 6 years. A judgment can also be appealed. If you appeal successfully, the court will automatically remove the entry in the register for you.

Getting the CCJ Marked as Satisfied

If you pay off the CCJ outside the 30 day period you can have the judgment marked as ‘satisfied.’ This will not remove the CCJ, but means that if prospective creditors do a search on your credit record they will be able to see that you have paid the CCJ in full.

Getting a Judgment Removed on Grounds of Unfairness

If you have a copy of your credit report and there are unfair or incorrect CCJs recorded against you, you can apply to have them taken off the register. To do this, you need to complete a form N244 (available from the HMCS website). Enter the information relating to the county court judgment onto the form and give the reason why the CCJ should be set aside. This could be, for example, because you were the victim of identity theft, or you did not receive the summons because it was sent to the wrong address. In other situations, you could also have been unable to attend court to defend the claim (forgetting or ignoring the summons is not sufficient), or perhaps you agreed to pay the debt but the creditor got a judgment against you anyway.

Your Credit Rating

To get the CCJ removed from your credit report, you will need to write to the finance company involved and ask them to confirm in writing that the debt is settled or repaid. Then, armed with this information, you should contact the credit reference agency asking for the CCJ to be removed from your file. It will take about one month for your file to be updated and the CCJ removed.