County Court Judgments remain on your credit file for 6 years and can have a devastating effect on your credit score. However, it is possible under specific circumstances, to have these removed.
On the date of the hearing you have neither responded to the court papers, nor do you attend the hearing. Under these circumstances, the creditor or claimant will be awarded Judgment in Default by the court for the full amount claimed - and you will have 28 days to pay the amount in full. After this 28 day period lapses without payment, the creditor / claimant can petition the court for a County Court Judgment which will enable a raft of enforcement options against you and judgment will be recorded on your personal credit file. In March 2018 when a review of your credit file is conducted, it is discovered you have a CCJ against you. No specific details may be recorded- it may just be a case number and amount.
Well, if you can prove that you left 1 Arcadia Road in July 2017 and moved into you new address by means of verifiable documents - such as a new tenancy agreement, legal notices, community tax records, medical communiques, banking records or even wage slips with your new address on - the list goes on - it may be possible to file what is called an N244 Set Aside Application with the court along with personal statements and demonstrable proof that you were not in residence at 1 Arcadia Road when the original court documents were issued (and could not be reasonably expected to have them forwarded to your new address) asking the court to Set Aside the original judgment.
If this Set Aside application is successful - and one of the few recognised grounds the court will set aside a judgment for is if the petitioner can prove he had no opportunity to receive the original court papers - then you are effectively placed in the position you were before the CCJ was recorded.
Here at Lawyers4u we are often asked if it is possible to have a County Court Judgment removed from a person's credit file. The answer is Yes - but generally under very specific circumstances.
Chief amongst these is the
demonstrable fact that the person or entity the CCJ was recorded against had no initial
knowledge, or could not be reasonably expected to have known, that a creditor or claimant had
filed a claim against [him] with County Court - and that the court papers had been previously
issued and served at an address he or she no longer resided at.
Say you lived at a residence known as 1 Arcadia Road, London - say for example from 1st July 2015 and on 1st July 2017, you relocated to a new address.
Perhaps you were flat sharing and wanted a place of your own, maybe re located for work or your personal circumstances changed. The actual circumstances are irrelevant for our purpose - only that you no longer resided at 1 Arcadia Road after the 1st July 2017.
In December 2017 a creditor (whom you are unaware of) after sending letters of claim to your former address at Arcadia Road without response, files a claim with the County Court to recover what they assert they are owed. In the Claim and Response Pack sent to your former address there are provisions for you to make a defence against the claim and a notice of the time and date of the scheduled hearing.
As stated above we would need to see demonstrable proof of specific periods of residence and a copy of your credit file showing the CCJ.
The cost of the N244 application that we must pay to the Court is £303 and our fee £299.
Yes. Having the original Judgment set aside places you in the position you were in before the original hearing. However, If the Claimant refiles the claim, you can now file a defence or negotiate with the creditor to settle the matter.
If the matter is settled or if you choose a hearing and your defence wins out, we can then contact the credit agencies and have the CCJ removed from your credit file.
