Enforcement by way of an Attachment of Earnings Order

Unfortunately not all County Court Judgments (“CCJ”)s are paid straight away and it may be necessary to carry out further work before payment is obtained.

One option of enforcing a CCJ is to apply for an attachment of earnings order whereby the debtor’s employer will deduct instalments towards the debt directly from their salary.

Introduced by the Attachment of Earnings Act 1971, this tool can be very effective in procuring payments from debtors trying to dodge their debts. Costs are relatively low, the application is straightforward and the creditor is even able to recover back some of their costs if the application is successful!

Certain conditions must be met before the court will consider the application which includes the debtor being an individual (not a limited company), they must not be self-employed or a member of the armed forces and the debt has to be over £50.

A big advantage of this order is that because of the sense of embarrassment the debtor may feel, they may not want their employer to know about their financial troubles and it therefore can prompt immediate payment or an offer of instalments which they otherwise would not have been prepared to make. There are however a couple of downsides to this order also which include interest not accruing on the decreasing amount and the length of time it may take for the debt to be paid off (depending on the size of the instalments that the court orders).

Please get in touch if this sounds like the right method for you.

This article was written by Sophie Taylor, a legal assistant in our debt recovery team. For more information, contact slt@debenhamsottaway.co.uk or call 01727 735632.