Enforcing a Judgment Debt – Part 1

If a debt is owed to you, the actual obtaining of the Judgment is generally speaking the easy part in the process, the difficulty is in enforcing the Judgment against the person who is or appears reluctant to pay and settle the debt.

Once a Judgment is granted by the Court and a request for payment is made on occasions the money owed (or Judgment sum) is paid without fuss and the claim is then concluded. However there are situations where the debtor remains reluctant to settle the Judgment sum and this is where further help and assistance is required in the enforcing of the Judgment. Some of the different types of enforcement are detailed below and more will follow:-

Charging Orders

This method of enforcement of a Judgment is usually used where the value of the debt or Judgment sum is of quite a high value although it can be used for any value of debt. A charging order is the means of securing the Judgment debt against the debtor’s property. Although there is no automatic payment of the debt, this method of enforcement will result in the Judgment debt being secured against the debtor’s property and when they come to sell or re-mortgage the property the charge or debt will be paid from any available equity in the property and consequently the debt will be paid.

Attachment of Earnings Order

This is a very effective method of enforcement when dealing with a Judgment debtor who has no other real assets or property. An application is made to the Court for an order to be made against the debtor’s salary or earnings and the employer of the debtor will be required to make a regular deduction from the earnings and make the payment to the Court. The deduction is generally a percentage of the monthly earnings and is capped so that the monies the debtor receives each month does not fall below a certain level. The pitfall of an Attachment of Earnings Order is that it cannot be used against someone who is self-employed.

This is only two possible methods of enforcement further details of other methods will follow in Part 2!

For all your debt recovery and enforcement needs, speak to the Debt Recovery team at Rogers and Norton.