When it comes to debt advice, one of the most important things to get it on is CCJs. Not only because this will let you know what is likely to happen if you do nothing about repaying your debt but also because it tells you the situation that your creditors are in. That way a good strategy can be formulated for dealing with your debt.
What is a County Court Judgement?
Once you have been declared in default on your debt, a CCJ (County Court Judgement) can be issued against you. This is an order from the court, telling you to keep repaying the debt to your creditors. If you disobey the order then there are a number of further steps that can be taken. It is at this point, for example, that it is possible for bailiffs to get involved.
How CCJs Work
For more information on how CCJs work it is recommended that you contact a company which is offering free debt advice. It’s not only advice on debt that you owe, they’ll also be able to elucidate these kinds of legal matters. The process will be gone through in simple terms here though.
Starting right at the beginning then, before any sort of action is taken or even thought about, you’ll have to miss some payments on your debt. You can usually miss one or two payments before they take legal action, but if you miss three payments then legal action may well follow.
You are going to get some notice though, before they take legal action. That’s because they are required to issue you with a Default Notice before they can petition the court to take action. And you have to be given a certain amount of time to repay all of your debt, usually 7-14 days is what they give.
Once the Default Notice has been issued, and the time you have been given to repay the debt has run out, then your creditor can petition the court for a CCJ. At that point you will get another document, this time from the court. You will have to fill in details of your budget, and you will also have the chance to be able to dispute how much you owe them.
Now, assuming that you do actually owe your creditor some money, the court will order that you have to pay it back. There is some good news though, which is that they are going to take in to account your budget when determining how much you have to pay each month. That means that they’re not going to ask you to pay any more than they feel you can afford.
It is this, that you are only going to have to pay what you can afford, which opens the door for a number of debt management plans. Most creditors will be willing to accept less each month voluntarily as they can’t expect to get any more from a CCJ in any case. So that’s why it’s a good idea to get debt advice about the best thing to do from experts.
If you do not keep up with payments on a CCJ issued against you though then there are a number of options that the court will have in order to enforce the payment. It is at this point, for example, that bailiffs can get involved. That is only one option though, there are also lots of other possibilities. None of them good though.
Jamie Lewis is an expert in lots of different financial affairs. He can be found writing regularly at http://www.debtadvice.net which is where you can discover much more regarding Debt advice.