Enforcement of Judgments — SQE1 FLK1 Dispute Resolution

Your client has judgment for £45,000. The debtor has paid nothing. She has no job and no savings, and her only substantial asset is a house in her sole name, worth about £250,000, subject to a mortgage of £180,000 that she is keeping up. He wants a charging order, and the £45,000 in his account within a few weeks. Will he get it? No. Not a penny.

A judgment is a piece of paper until you enforce it, and enforcement is often harder than winning was. This is Enforcement of Judgments, the last episode of Dispute Resolution. Keep that man in mind. By the end you will know exactly what he can and cannot do.

Here is the route. Choosing a method first, because the debtor decides it, not you. Then taking control of goods, with its venue rules and its notice periods. Then charging orders. Then attachment of earnings. Then third party debt orders. Then securities and stop notices. Then getting information out of the debtor. Then statutory demands and insolvency. And finally, the clock you are running against.

Start with the shape of it. Enforcement is not one remedy, it is a toolkit, and CPR Part 70 holds the general rules. Taking control of goods. Charging orders. Attachment of earnings. Third party debt orders. Statutory demands. Insolvency. Each has its own uses and its own limits.

Which one you reach for depends on who you are chasing. Employed debtor? Attachment of earnings. Homeowner? Charging order. Business with stock and equipment? Take control of goods. Bank account known? Third party debt order. No obvious assets at all? Find them first.

So asset location comes before everything. Property can be searched at the Land Registry. Companies can be investigated at Companies House. Previous payments may show where the debtor banks. And an order to obtain information can force the debtor to tell you the rest.

Then weigh cost against benefit. Enforcement costs money, and some methods carry court fees up front. A charging order over a property with almost no equity can cost more than it recovers. Ask whether the juice is worth the squeeze.

Taking control of goods first. Enforcement agents, formerly bailiffs, attend the debtor's premises, take control of goods, and sell them at auction. Visible, effective and embarrassing, which is often why it works. The debtor can pay at any point to stop it.

Two instruments, and they are not interchangeable. High Court judgments are enforced by writs of control. County Court judgments use warrants of control. High Court enforcement officers have wider powers, and can enforce anywhere in England and Wales.

But the choice is not always yours. Where a County Court judgment is enforced against goods, article 8 of the High Court and County Courts Jurisdiction Order 1991 fixes the venue by value. £5,000 or more must go to the High Court. Less than £600 must stay in the County Court. Between the two, you choose.

Try one. A County Court judgment for £8,000 against a haulage business, nothing to do with consumer credit. Warrant of control, or writ of control? Writ. The sum is over the line, so the High Court is compulsory, and the warrant is not a weaker option, it is the wrong instrument.

One exception to that band. Sums payable under a regulated consumer credit agreement stay in the County Court whatever their size.

Now the timetable, and this is where instructions go wrong. Enforcement against goods begins with a notice of enforcement. Regulation 6 of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 requires it not less than 14 clear days before the agent takes control. Sundays, bank holidays, Good Friday and Christmas Day do not count.

That period was seven clear days until amending regulations doubled it on 1 May 2026. Only the court can shorten it. And where a debt adviser asks before the notice expires, it can be extended to 28 days, though not for business debt.

So: the agent is told to attend tomorrow morning, load the van and sell at auction that afternoon. Can he? No. Not one part of that survives the timetable, and the period runs from the giving of the notice, not from the issue of the warrant.

Entry has rules of its own. Under Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the agent may enter only through a door or other usual means of entry. Windows are excluded. On a first visit to a home entry must be peaceable, so he cannot force his way in.

Taking control does not always mean removal. The agent can secure the goods, remove them, or enter into a controlled goods agreement, under which the goods stay with the debtor while instalments are paid. Break that agreement, and after the prescribed notice he may re-enter, using reasonable force, and take them away.

Not everything can be taken. Exempt items include tools of the trade up to a value, clothing, bedding, basic household equipment and things needed for medical care. Pets are exempt. A television is not reasonably required for basic domestic needs, so the television goes.

And watch the fees. Enforcement agents charge fees set by regulations in fixed stages, added to the debt and recovered from the debtor. Make sure the debt is large enough to carry them.

Charging orders next, and back to our man with his £45,000. A charging order, under the Charging Orders Act 1979 and CPR Part 73, secures the judgment debt on the debtor's interest in property. It behaves like a mortgage. She cannot sell or remortgage without the charge being met.

Two stages, and only the second is permanent. First the interim charging order, usually made by a court officer without notice. It imposes the charge, and is served on the debtor and on anyone else with an interest, such as the mortgage lender.

Then the final order. Where nobody files evidence objecting within 28 days of service, a judge or legal adviser makes it on the papers, with no hearing at all, under CPR 73.10. A hearing is listed only if objections are filed, and the application then goes to the debtor's home court.

Priority is where marks are lost. Your charge takes priority from the date of the interim charging order, not from the date of the judgment. Existing mortgages keep theirs. So where three creditors are charging the same house, the interim dates decide the queue.

Which makes equity matter more than the size of the judgment. Our man's debtor has a house worth about £250,000 and a mortgage of £180,000. That is £70,000 of equity sitting behind his charge. Well worth having. But having it and being paid are different things.

A charging order sells nothing. To be paid you bring a fresh claim for an order for sale, under CPR 73.10C, using the Part 8 procedure, and the court has a discretion. It weighs the size of the debt against the consequences of a sale.

It weighs the debtor's circumstances too, and those of anyone living there, the length of occupation, the equity, and whether you have a realistic alternative. Two school-age children in a £310,000 home, a debt of £12,000, and £150 a month paid without default for eight months? No sale.

One wrinkle where the house is co-owned. It is then held on a trust of land, and the charge goes over the debtor's beneficial share, not the legal estate. That is protected at the Land Registry by a restriction rather than a charge.

Attachment of earnings now, and it is the simplest idea in the topic. The court orders the debtor's employer to deduct sums from pay and send them to court, which pays them on to you. The Attachment of Earnings Act 1971 is the source. It turns the employer into your collector.

But it only reaches employed debtors. Not the self-employed, not contractors, not the unemployed. The debtor needs a regular income to deduct from. And the order binds the current employer only, so a change of job means a new order.

The amount is not yours to choose. The court fixes a protected earnings rate from the debtor's means, below which pay may not be reduced, and sets the deduction above it. Higher earners pay more each month. The debtor keeps enough to live on, whatever you are owed.

Note the court, too. Attachment of earnings is a County Court remedy, under the 1971 Act and CPR Part 89, and cannot be obtained in the High Court. A High Court creditor who wants a slice of a salary must transfer the judgment down and apply there.

Third party debt orders next, under CPR Part 72. Somebody owes money to your debtor. The order freezes that debt and redirects it to you. The classic third party is a bank, because a bank owes its customer the credit balance on the account.

You apply without notice, and the interim order is served on the bank first, not on the debtor. Surprise is the whole point. The bank can then dispute what it owes, and a final hearing decides whether the money is paid over.

Now the trap. The order attaches the debt owed at the moment it is served. A snapshot, not a net. £310 in the account on the day of service, and £9,000 from a customer five days later? The order catches £310, and the rest is untouched.

Joint accounts stop it dead. The order attaches a debt due to the judgment debtor, and what a bank owes on a joint account is owed to the holders jointly. Where the judgment is against one of them only, no order can be made at all. That is Hirschhorn v Evans.

There is no power to sever a half share. The practice direction is drafted around it: a bank served with an interim order need only retain and disclose for accounts held by the judgment debtor alone. If both holders are judgment debtors, the account is attachable again.

Two further points examiners like. The bank can first set off what its customer owes it, so a £9,000 balance against a matured £3,500 loan yields £5,500. And under CPR 72.7 the debtor can apply for a hardship payment order, releasing frozen funds for rent, food and living expenses.

Securities, briefly. A charging order can also be made over stocks, shares, bonds and other investments, by the same interim and final route. The court can later order realisation, with any surplus returned to the debtor.

A stop notice is the weaker cousin, and its effect is routinely overstated. Served on the body keeping the register, usually the company, it neither freezes the securities nor redirects anything to you. It entitles you to 14 days' notice before a transfer is registered or a dividend paid, under CPR 73.18.

Those 14 days are your window to apply for a charging order over the securities. After that the company must deal with them as usual. And a stop notice cannot touch a bank account. For money in an account you need a third party debt order.

None of this works if you do not know what the debtor has. Hence the order to obtain information, under CPR Part 71, formerly the oral examination. The debtor, or an officer of a debtor company, attends court and answers questions on oath about their means.

You can ask about employment, income, bank accounts, property, vehicles and investments, and about recent transactions that look like attempts to hide assets. The answers then choose your method. An account means a third party debt order. A salary means attachment of earnings.

The order must be personally served, and attendance is not optional. If the debtor fails to attend without good reason, the court may make a committal order suspended on terms that he attend a rearranged hearing, under CPR 71.8. Keep defaulting, and prison follows.

Statutory demands now, the nuclear option. A formal written demand for payment of an undisputed debt. If it is not paid, secured or compounded within 21 days, that failure is the evidence of inability to pay. It founds a petition, for bankruptcy against an individual or winding up against a company.

The debtor's answer is to apply to set the demand aside, and an individual must do that within 18 days of service. The grounds sit in the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016. A counterclaim or set-off equalling the debt, a substantial dispute about it, security equalling it, or other grounds satisfying the court.

Then insolvency itself. Bankruptcy puts an individual's assets in the hands of a trustee. Winding up liquidates a company. Both are expensive, and in both you rank alongside every other creditor, so you may recover a percentage. Keep them for substantial debts where other methods have failed.

Finally, the clock. You can combine methods, and often should, though you can never recover more than you are owed. But the court's permission is needed to enforce a judgment more than six years after it was entered, under CPR 83.2. And a fresh action on the judgment is barred after six years, by s.24 of the Limitation Act 1980.

A word on how SQE1 tests this. You will not be asked to recall a case name or a rule number. You get a scenario, five answers, and one instruction: pick the best. This is a topic of rules rather than cases, and there is almost nothing here to learn by name.

If you keep only three pegs. Fourteen clear days' notice of enforcement, doubled from seven on 1 May 2026. The two statutory demand thresholds, £5,000 for an individual and £750 for a company. And Hirschhorn v Evans, where a joint account defeated the order because the bank owed the balance to both holders.

Four traps. One: winning is only half the battle, and a judgment against a debtor with nothing is worth nothing. Asset investigation starts before you issue proceedings, not after you win. Ask about bank accounts, employment and property while you still have disclosure to work with.

Two: a charging order is security, not recovery. It does not transfer the equity, it does not order a sale, and it produces no cash. It is a long game, and for urgent money you need a different method.

Three: enforcement fees are added to the debt, and on a small judgment they can swallow the recovery whole. So can insolvency costs, where you may spend a great deal and then rank alongside every other creditor for a percentage.

Four: if the debtor changes jobs, the attachment of earnings order does not follow. It binds the current employer only. Debtors who hear one is coming sometimes move on purpose, so act quickly once you have the employment details.

Quick check. A supplier is owed money on two unpaid invoices, both undisputed and both long overdue. One debtor is an individual sole trader who owes £3,000. The other is a limited company which owes £3,000. The solicitor proposes to serve a statutory demand on each, wait 21 days, then petition for bankruptcy against the individual and for the winding up of the company.

Against which of the two can the supplier take that step? Three candidates. One: against both, because the same £750 threshold applies whoever the debtor is. Two: against the company only, because £3,000 clears the £750 winding up threshold but not the £5,000 bankruptcy threshold. Three: against neither, because a statutory demand needs a judgment first. Pause here if you want a moment.

The answer is two. The two insolvency regimes set different money thresholds, and £3,000 falls between them. A creditor's bankruptcy petition needs a debt of at least £5,000, so the demand against the sole trader leads nowhere however long the supplier waits. A company can be wound up where it neglects for three weeks to pay a written demand for a sum exceeding £750.

Why the others fail. Option one takes the winding up figure and applies it to bankruptcy, which it has never been. Option three invents a requirement: a statutory demand is available for any undisputed debt, and obtaining judgment first is optional.

Five things to take away. One: the debtor picks the method, not you. Employed, attachment of earnings. Homeowner, charging order. Business with goods, take control. Bank account known, third party debt order. Nothing obvious, an order to obtain information first.

Two: taking control of goods has a timetable and a venue rule. Fourteen clear days' notice, and a County Court judgment of £5,000 or more must go to the High Court. Three: our man gets his charge and £70,000 of equity behind it, but no cash until a separate order for sale.

Four: a third party debt order is a snapshot taken at service, and a joint account defeats it. Five: the demand thresholds are £5,000 and £750, and after six years you need the court's permission to enforce. Next time, a new subject: Legal Services.

Practise this topic with exam-style questions at sqe1prep.co.uk. This episode is for education and exam revision only, not legal advice, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the SRA or Kaplan.