CCJ’s County Court Judgements

What is a CCJ?

What happens if you get a CCJ?

Can they send bailiffs out if I have a CCJ?

Can I place a CCJ in bankruptcy?

Can a CCJ go in an IVA or a Debt Management Plan?

Is a CCJ bad for my credit?


A CCJ is a County Court Judgement that a creditor, or someone you owe money to, has gotten against you in court.

If you owe someone money, and they are trying to collect the money owed to them, they can take you to court, show/prove to a Judge you owe this money and they are attempting to collect it, and the Judge grants them this order or judgement against you.

Is a CCJ bad for your credit, well yes, it is bad as it shows you could not pay a debt or bill and were taken to court over this.

So they do have an effect on your credit.

If you happen to receive a CCJ, it is not the end of the world, while not good for your credit, it is in essence just a court’s way of acknowledging you owe a debt and cannot pay it; it is the enforcement part of the CCJ that is the troubling part.

Once a creditor has a CCJ against you they can go back to the court/Judge, and look at getting the CCJ enforced to collect the debt.

The enforcement process is where it can get ugly as that is when bailiffs can be used, and bailiffs showing up at your doorstep is never a good thing.....unless they are asking directions to someone else’s house.

In the enforcement process of a CCJ a creditor can send out bailiffs or look at obtaining a charging order against any property you may have.

Of the two enforcement processes, the charging order in some instances is the lesser or the two evils as in most instances a charging order just sits there waiting until you sell a property. I have written more on charging orders in other writings.

But what can you do if you have a CCJ?

You can include CCJ’s in bankruptcy and also in IVA’s as all your debts need to be included in both these forms of insolvency.

You can include a CCJ in a Debt Management Plan, however you will need to have the payments set-up in the amount the creditor will accept, not just based on what amount you can afford.

The reason for this is that a DMP or debt Management Plan, is an informal arrangement, and not binding to your creditors. So if the creditor did not like the amount they were receiving as payment, they could attempt to enforce the CCJ and take it that one step further, which could once again bring up the bailiffs issue. Which we want to avoid like the plague.

So while it is best if we can avoid getting a CCJ, and there are many options available to us to address this situation, if you do receive a CCJ, you still have solutions that can help with this.