This blog is for anyone who has seen High Court Enforcement Agents in action and wants to utilise the High Court service to get their money judgment enforced.
You might be a Money Claim Online User who has got so far with getting a judgment from the Court but is stuck on what to do next to compel your debtor to pay. Or you may be a credit manager or credit controller who wants to streamline their litigation process so that enforcement of judgments sees the cashback coming in. You may be advising a person or business with a judgment on how to enforce payment. Whatever your situation what we can say is that enforcement costs are not too scary provided you follow a few simple points on how to instruct and work with your High Court provider.
Key Facts of High Court Enforcement
So here are our 10 Key Milestones to help you through the topic of High Court Enforcement Fees |
Milestone #1 | The Debtor Pays for Successful Enforcement – yes that’s right – the debtor pays the costs of the High Court Enforcement Officer which are set by the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014. Where the High Court Enforcement Officer collects it actually costs the creditor nothing to use the service.
What you will pay with our service is an investment of £156 including VAT to get your judgment transferred from the county court to the High Court through our legal services provider – Shergroup Legal. £66 of this fee will be returned to you if your debtor pays the High Court Enforcement Officer.
Milestone #2 | Invest In Your Enforcement Process – There’s no such thing as a free lunch and enforcing a judgment involves paying additional fees to move to the next step. You may be using county court bailiffs to enforce payment and you will be paying a fee to issue a Warrant of Control. But the High Court enforcement process provides creditors with a more dynamic and focussed service – so we encourage you to swap out to the High Court system of enforcement.
Milestone #3 | Don’t forget not every judgment can be transferred – Judgments under £600 or those regulated by the Consumer Credit Act legislation cannot be transferred to the High Court for enforcement. If your judgment falls into these categories – don’t worry we have solutions for collecting judgments of any type or value. Our Business Solutions Advisors can help you decide on what is and is not possible. The bottom line is we want to increase the odds for enforcing all types of judgments even if we can’t send them to the High Court and we have proven ways to do this.
Milestone #4 | We offer a no-obligation review service for any judgment you want to transfer to the High Court – We don’t want you to waste time and money trying to enforce the unenforceable. All you have to do is call or email us and we can take a look at the judgment information to guide you on your next steps.
Milestone #5 | You can instruct us online – Once you are satisfied that your paperwork is in order (or perhaps you already know these points and just want to get on and
) then you can use our online service at
https://shergroup.com/product-page/cashflow-county-court-judgment-ccj-transfer
and upload a copy of your judgment straight into our system.
Once you pay your fee for the transfer of £156.00, we start the work of getting the High Court Writ of Control issued. We liaise with the county court, get the necessary Certificate of Judgment organised and attend the High Court in London to organise the Writ to be issued and sent to our local enforcement agents. You may have seen them on the telly in the “Can’t Pay, We’ll Take It Away TV” show on Channel 5 and now on Netflix.
Milestone #6 | A question you may be asking yourself is why transfer to the High Court? That’s a very valid question and the answer is quite simply that you need to get your judgment into the hands of a TEAM who are going to do their utmost to get you your money. Statistics that we return to the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis consistently show our results above 90p in the POUND success rate for judgments sent to Shergroup for enforcement over the last 3 years. We are not saying that EVERY judgment is enforceable but where the debtor is at the property, is not insolvent, and has assets to enforce against, you increase your odds of getting paid.
By sourcing the best enforcement agents, by working with you and by adding value to our process with our in-house collection process, we create more successful outcomes for our clients with payments in full or sensible payment plans.
Milestone #7 | What does the debtor pay? – As mentioned earlier the debtor pays the cost of enforcement and where the debtor pays all or some of the debt the fees of the High Court Enforcement Officer will be added to your judgment.
Milestone #8 | Can a Debtor Avoid Our Fees? The answer to this is YES. As we start to transfer the judgment a Notice of Enforcement will be sent to the debtor warning of the consequences of non-payment and encouraging early settlement. If the debtor pays at this stage you will get back your £66.00 plus your judgment debt, costs, and interest. Some debtors do pay at this stage and all they have to pay is £75.00 plus VAT.
But a surprising number of people still don’t pay even when warned which means we then send our enforcement agents to the “relevant premises” address. This has to be where the Judgment Debtor has been residing or trading from as a business.
At this stage, the fees set by statute start to add up with an immediate commission charge of 7.5% of the value of the debt being added to the judgment along with smaller set fees.
Milestone #9 | Let Us Handle the Negotiations on Payment | We say this because if you don’t you may not appreciate that the fees, we would charge to the debtor ends up being payable by you as the creditor and you don’t want that. So, for example, let’s say you are owed £5,000 as a judgment debt. To ensure you get the £5,000 you must let us enforce payment of that amount and add the enforcement fees on top. We will collect the full amount, deduct our fees and remit the balance to you. If you just accept the £5,000 in a full and final settlement then we will send you an invoice for our fees and you will receive closer to £4,000. So, our advice is NEVER to do a deal with the debtor on a High Court Writ of Control unless you have taken into account the fees that we will be charged.
Milestone #10 | So what happens if we can’t enforce payment? Because you paid £156.00 at the beginning of this process there is nothing further to pay.
So, all in all, your exposure to the cost of using a High Court Enforcement Officer is capped at £156.00. As things stand at the date of this blog the only way that fee will increase is if the court fee increases which it does from time to time.
We understand that paying anything else to get back the money you are owed can be a bitter pill to swallow but when you invest with Shergroup and our High Court enforcement process you are increasing your odds of getting paid. An unenforced judgment is never going to give you are return. Getting your judgment to us just increased your odds of changing that to money in the bank.
Summing Up
Of course, not every judgment will be paid. But if we can’t get your money back there will be a reason and if we see another route we will signpost that for you and indeed offer you a solution to go to the next step. If the likelihood of payment is not there it could be that it shines a light on how you do business, how your credit checks your customers and how you can plug that gap in the future.
What we can say is that spending £156 with Shergroup increases your odds considerably over a Warrant of Control in the County Court. Your odds go up when you instruct us because we get paid when you get paid. We’re interested in serving you as our client, and we want to do the best for you.
If you want more information about anything mentioned in this blog, please contact us on 0845 890 9200 or send a message to hub@shergroup.com. We are also on all the usual social media channels!
Happy Enforcing!