A Guide to County Court Procedures

When making a claim about a dispute at work, a personal injury, discrimination, or any claim under £50,000 it is important to know exactly how the Country Court Procedures work. You will only have a 6 month time limit from the starting day of the incident in which you can make an official claim. Depending on the case you can sometimes a get an extension of this time limit and sometimes it has been known that your claim can still be assessed by a County Court even after the time limit has expired.

Once you made your claim through the Country Court a fee will be charged that will depends on the amount of claim money being sought. The County Court will issue a claim form to those in question that states the claim. This form gives the defendant the chance to explain the issue and must be sent back within 16 days. If you miss this time limit then you may be forced to pay the money back immediately and would be unable to seek redetermination.

The form will expect the defendant to provide information about their financial situation and give the option to start repayments on whatever is owed. If they disagree with the amount it is possible to offer whatever sum they feel would be reasonable. If they refuse or can't afford to pay they will have to send back the court documents issued explaining this. The courts are able to start court proceeding to force you to pay the amount in monthly installments or in a one off payment. Once a dispute gets into court, each party will present their case to the judge with relevant evidence in a private trail. The courts will evaluate the evidence presented to them and make a decision about if the money is owed; if it is owed then they will decide the best way in which the money should be paid. This decision of repayment is called a County Court Judgment (CCJ) order.

If the defendant is unable to pay they will have 14 days to apply for redetermination, which is usually free of charge. All that is needed to apply for redetermination is to write a letter to County Court explaining the situation, quote the case number and provide the relevant financial evidence. Usually there will be a hearing you will need to attend at your local County Court where a re-evaluation will be made by a judge. If you owe a lot of money and have several CCJs then the court has the power to combine all your debts into one administrative order in which you will pay all you owe through monthly installments. To gain an administrative order you will have to owe £5,000 or less. Administrative orders can save you valuable time and avoid stress, as the court will sort out everything for the best solution for you. However, the court will charge a handling fee of 10% of your total debt for this service.

If you are unable to pay you can make a request using a N244 form to the court to freeze the order until you are able to restart payment. Using a N245 form you can alternatively request that the court should change the monthly repayment to a sum that suits you better.

Occasionally people have disagreed with a CCJ and have asked the court to remove the judgment made against them. Usually there would be a fee for this request and if your reason is invalid you could be charged with wasting court time and even perjury, which can sometime lead to large fines and/or a prison sentence.

Credit reference agencies can gain factual information about your CCJ and keep it on file for 6 years. As this can seriously damage your credit rating, it is possible to have your CCJ removed from the credit reference agency's database. Credit repair companies with a credit licence from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) are able to flag up any mistakes that could have been made during the dispute. A CCJ may only be removed from the database if you have fully repaid any debts within one month or if your CCJ was removed by the court.

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