Recovery of judgment debt outside court procedures

Contributed by Ian Macdonald and Andrea Highman and current to 1 September 2005

Usually the debtor will have to pay the creditor’s legal costs of enforcing judgment as well as the original debt, legal and court costs incurred by the creditor and interest on the judgment sum calculated to the date of payment. It is therefore to the debtor’s financial advantage to pay any judgment debt as soon as possible.

A private agreement with the creditor will save enforcement costs but there is no guarantee that the creditor will not take court proceedings to enforce the debt. It is most likely that the method of payment of the judgment debt will be by instalments, provided the creditor is agreeable. The debtor can work out how much they can afford to pay each week or fortnight using an income and expenditure sheet, and the debt can be paid off steadily without the debtor going further into debt.