Understanding judgments & fines

CCJs and county courts

• CCJs: What are they?
• CCJs and credit: mortgages, loans and credit cards
• County court judgment records: How long CCJs stay on record
• Certificate of satisfaction - Satisfied vs unsatisfied CCJs
• Set aside a judgment
• Removing a CCJ
• Enforcing judgments
• Default judgments
• County courts: How they work
• County court judgment forms

CCJ removal

There are some options to remove a CCJ from the register or have the information on it corrected. These include:

• Paying the CCJ in full within a month If you do this, details of the county court judgment are removed altogether from the register.
• Paying the CCJ later You can get a certificate of satisfaction, in which case the CCJ is marked as satisfied on the register (but stays on it). Anyone who checks it will know that you have paid what you owe.
• Judgment set aside You can apply for the judgment to be set aside in some cases.
• Wait six years The register holds details of CCJs for six years. For them to be removed, you have to wait for this time limit.
• Amend details If your details on the register are wrong (e.g. the amount of the CCJ is wrong) contact us once you’ve searched the register. We will check with the court, and we’ll let you know what they say.

Credit repair companies

There are no other ways to get a CCJ removed from the register.

Some disreputable companies credit repair have claimed to do things like ‘legally remove CCJs’. These companies charge for these services, and have encouraged people to commit perjury, laying themselves open to prosecution.

If there is a mistake on the register, you can have it corrected by contacting the court.

If there is not a mistake, you can’t. And lying to the court to try to get a CCJ removed will get you in a lot of trouble.

OFT warning on credit repair

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has warned that “the information given by these companies may be wrong, misleading or guaranteed to get you into worse trouble – and ensure that you are even more out of pocket. They may also be a ‘front’ for a lender or broker who is simply trying to sell you a loan.”

As the Director General of the OFT points out “these (credit repair) companies offer nothing you cannot do for yourself. County court judgments cannot be removed from credit files unless they have been discharged (within a month) or were incorrectly granted."