A county court judgment or CCJ is a court order made in your favour that means the other person, company or organisation involved in your court case needs to pay you money - this could be a debt or compensation or damages, depending on your case.
The other person, company or organisation will have been known as the ‘defendant’ in the case. Now that the court has ordered that they owe you money the law calls them the ‘debtor’. You may see the word ‘creditor’ too in court documents. This means someone who is owed money. In this case, that is you.

After all the time and effort spent getting a court order made in your favour, you would be forgiven for thinking that was the end of it. Unfortunately, sometimes the debtor doesn’t always follow what the order says in the timeframe required. It is important to understand that the court will not:

• check that the order has been complied with and you have been paid what you are due, or
• take any steps to enforce the order unless you ask it to.

You need to decide if it is worthwhile taking further court action to try and get the money owed to you. There are various things to think about before you decide. We talk about all these next.

Step 1 – check you can enforce your order

Timings

You can only apply to enforce your order if the debtor has not paid you in the timeframe set by the court. Usually, payment should be made within 14 days of the date of the order. So, usually you will need to wait for at least two weeks to pass before taking any decisions on enforcement proceedings.

If you have an order that was made some time ago, but you are only now thinking about enforcing it, be aware that you have 6 years from the date the order was made in which to enforce it. After that it will be too late and you will be unable to enforce the order.

Making sure the debtor knows about the order

If the debtor was not at the court hearing where the judge ordered them to pay you a sum of money, they may not know about the order. Usually according to the Civil Procedure Rules the court will make sure the debtor receives the court order. This is called ‘service’ or ‘serving’ the order. However, if the debtor later says they never received the order it will delay things for you. So, if you can, it is worthwhile checking with the debtor that they have received the order.

If you want to be sure that the debtor has received the order, you can serve it yourself (even if the court may have already done this). That way, you will have proof that you have served the debtor. Unless a specific rule tells you how you must do this or the judge says you have to serve the debtor in a particular way, you can make sure the debtor has the order via different methods.

You can send the order by post or email if you are sure of the address. You can leave it at the debtor’s address yourself if this is safe, or hand it to the debtor directly. Or, if this isn’t safe and you want to be completely sure the debtor does know about it you can pay for a professional, known as a ‘process server’ to personally hand it to the debtor.

For more help on this, you can find the court rules about when an order is classed as properly served by the court at Civil Procedure Rules 6.21 and 6.26.

Specific situations that will delay or prevent you from successfully enforcing the order

Insolvent debtors

A person, company or organisation is described as ‘insolvent’ when they cannot pay their debts on the date they are meant to pay them – or when they ‘fall due’ as accountants and lawyers call it.
If the debtor is about to become insolvent, or is insolvent, this could have wide ranging implications for any claims you might have against them.

The debtor may choose or be forced to go bankrupt. This is a legal process that can be used to deal with the situation where the debtor cannot pay debts they owe. If the debtor goes through bankruptcy proceedings, someone called the ‘official receiver’ takes over any land, property, money that the debtor has and deals with it according to strict laws on insolvency. This means that other people or companies that the debtor owes money to will also have rights over any assets and your judgment debt could be at the end of a long list.

If your debtor is a company and was insured, you might be able to bring a claim against their insurer directly, however this is a complicated legal point and you should certainly get legal advice before starting down this route.

We explain how to find out if the debtor is bankrupt in the section below called ‘Searches’.

Applications for a stay of execution

The debtor could apply to the court after the judgment order is made for something called a ‘stay of execution’. This is an order that stops the judgment debt order from being enforced while the court is given new or more information.

This pause in the case can be temporary, while the debtor works out a detailed and realistic payment plan to pay you what you are owed, which might mean the court orders you get payments in smaller instalments over a longer timeframe. Or the debtor can ask the court to cancel or ‘set aside’ the order if certain circumstances apply, such as the debtor didn’t know about the case and/or you didn’t follow the right process.  

If the debtor applies for either of these applications, there will be some delay and you may be asked to negotiate with the debtor about how they pay you or attend another court hearing where a judge decides what should happen next. If the debtor’s application is unsuccessful the court will tell you when you can start enforcement proceedings.

Debt Respite Scheme (Breathing Space)

The Debt Respite Scheme gives people with 'problem debt' a short period of time to have breathing space from enforcement proceedings. People are classed as having problem debt if they cannot afford to pay the repayments on their debts when they are due. So, in your case, it is possible that the debtor might be classed as having problem debt and be protected by the scheme.

There are two types of breathing spaces offered to people with problem debt. If your debtor is protected by either of these schemes you need to understand them and not take certain action while the debtor is protected by the scheme. The scheme is managed by the Insolvency Service. They will tell you, by email or post, if the debtor in your case is protected under the scheme. During the time they are protected by the scheme, you must not contact them about what they owe you or start enforcement proceedings. You can have contact with their debt adviser if they have one.

• Standard breathing space protects people who have problem debt enforcement action for up to 60 days. So, if your debtor has this protection in place this will delay your application to enforce the judgment debt by at least 60 days.
• Mental health crisis breathing space protects someone who owes money and is also having mental health crisis treatment. It lasts as long as the mental health crisis treatment takes, plus 30 days. If this type of breathing space is in place for the person that owes you money it means it is hard to predict when you will be allowed to start enforcement proceedings.

You can read more about the Debt Respite Scheme in the Insolvency Service’s guidance for creditors. If your debtor is protected and you are considering what else you might do about your debt it is important to read the government guidance called Debt Respite (Breathing Space) Scheme - creditors’ responsibilities to the court first.

Before doing anything else check:

• the debtor has had the chance to pay in the timeframe given by the court. This is usually 14 days. Or, if you have had the order for some time, make sure you are within the 6-year time limit to enforce the order,
• the debtor knows about the judgment made against them, and
• none of the situations above apply in your case that might mean you shouldn’t or cannot apply to enforce the order now or for some time.

Step 2 – working out if it is worth trying to enforce your order

Now you know you can enforce the order you need to decide if it is worth your time, money, and effort to go back to court to enforce it. The main thing is whether or not the debtor has the money to pay you. If you are sure that the debtor has money but is just choosing not to pay then you can skip this section and go the section called The different ways you can enforce your order.

If you are not sure that the debtor has the means to pay, work your way through this section.

You need to think carefully about whether it is worth trying to enforce the order. To have had a county court judgment made in your favour, you will have already spent time and money on the problem. And it might have been stressful too.

If the debtor genuinely can’t pay, it is very likely that you are going to waste more time and money by trying to enforce your order. Sometimes the debtor may have insurance to cover their debts but you would only be paid by an insurance company if they looked at the case and agreed it was a situation that their insurance policy covered.

So, you need to find out if your debtor has money or other things of value such as land, property, or investments – called ‘assets’ by lawyers – and where those assets are.

Where the assets are

In England and Wales, you can bring enforcement proceedings through the court. But if the debtor’s only money or assets are in Scotland or Northern Ireland it will be a more complicated process. And if their only money or assets are abroad, then you will need to think very carefully about whether it is worth starting proceedings against them. For more information see Civil procedure rule - Part 74 - Enforcement of judgments in different jurisdictions.

Searches

There are some searches you can do that may help tell you more about the debtor’s financial situation. Some are free, others are charged for.

You can:

• Find out who owns a property and whether there are any debts secured on it by searching information from the Land Registry.
• Check whether someone is bankrupt by searching the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Register.
• Check if a person or company is insolvent (does not have enough money or assets to pay their debts) by checking the public notices in the London Gazette.
• Ask for information about the registered keeper of a vehicle from DVLA.
• Check if a vehicle is stolen, written off or on finance at HPI Check.
• Check whether a business or an individual has been fined or had court orders made against them at Trust Online.
• Find information about a company and see if their accounts are up to date from Companies House.
• Check the Attachment of Earnings Index to see if the debtor already has had this type of order made against them. You need to ask the court to do this – for more help see the section called How to enforce your order - attachment of earnings orders.
• Find information about a registered charity and their accounts from the Charity Commission.
• Carry out an internet search and check social media to find out useful information about the debtor. For example, lots of information can come up about a company in online reviews.

Enquiry agents

Lawyers sometimes uses enquiry agents to investigate whether it is worth starting legal proceedings against someone. Enquiry agents can provide a report about someone’s financial status. Typically, this will give you information about whether they are a homeowner or a tenant, whether they are bankrupt or have court orders against their name and their employment details. You may want to consider this option but check the cost before you go ahead. Some enquiry agents offer this service at a fixed cost - others charge an hourly rate.

You can find an enquiry agent through the Association of British Investigators or the Institute of Professional Investigators.

Applying to the court for more information from the debtor

Another way to get information about the debtor’s financial situation is to apply to court for something called an ‘order to obtain information’. This is an order that tells the debtor to come to court and answer questions about their financial situation.
This isn’t a quick fix as the process takes time. But it could be very helpful in giving you a clearer picture of the debtor’s current financial situation so you can decide what to do next.

Next are some advantages and disadvantages of this route to getting more information.

Now that you have read about some advantages and disadvantages of this process, you may have decided to apply for this order. If so, you can read our step-by-step guidance to help you through the process. If not, you can skip this bit and go on to the short section called Next steps.

The process of applying to the court for an ‘order to obtain information’

What happens if the debtor does not attend the hearing

If the debtor does not attend or attends the hearing but refuses to answer any questions as required there are further steps to go through. The judge will look at what happened and decide if the debtor has failed to comply with the order. If the judge orders that the debtor hasn’t complied the judge will make something called a ‘suspended committal order’. This is an order that means if the debtor does not attend another hearing and do as they are ordered, they will be sent or ‘committed’ to prison.

Again, this order has to be personally served on the debtor and you will need to do another affidavit. If this happens, you need to go back to step 5 above. If the debtor fails to attend again – on the new hearing date – then the debtor will be arrested and taken to court. If at that point they engage with the court and answer the questions, it is unlikely they will be sent to prison. If they still refuse to, an order called a ‘warrant of committal’ will normally be issued immediately. This means that the debtor will be taken to the prison for the time detailed in suspended committed order.

There is a range of different ways to enforce your order. The best option for you will depend on your and the debtor’s situation. When you know more about the options it will be up to you to decide which suits your situation the most. You may well need legal advice to help you decide - the section called More help and advice will help you with this.

In this section we give you an overview of the different options and in the next section we go into more detail about the most commonly used ones.

Be aware that there are costs involved in all of these enforcement options – court fees and if you use court bailiffs or enforcement officers, they will have professional fees and expenses. If you are successful in getting your money back from the debtor, these costs can be added on to the debt. But if you are not you will have to pay them yourself. For court fees, if you are on a low income you can ask for help with fees.

If you are successful, as well as claiming your costs, you may be able to claim interest from the debtor too. Interest can be added to a debt that is over £5,000. This type of interest is called ‘statutory interest’ and is currently charged at a rate of 8%. The court can decide the date from when interest will run, but usually it will from the date of the order that states the debtor owes you money. It stops being charged when enforcement steps for a warrant or writ of control, attachment of earnings or third party debt orders begin. Although if these are not successful, it runs on as though you had never started enforcement. When it comes to charging orders, statutory interest continues to run even when you start the application.

If more than one type of enforcement option might help you get all your money back you can decide to use more than one. Some can be used at the same time or one after the other, in a particular order. Where you can use more than one option at the same time, there can be tactical or practical reasons to use them in a certain order. Things can get complicated though so if you think this might be a good way forward, get legal advice first. 

In the next few sections we look at each method of enforcement in more detail. If you know one or more of the methods do not fit your situation you can skip to the next one.

Before you spend more time, money, and energy on trying to get your money it is important to think about the practicalities. Do you know if the debtor has belongings or goods worth enough to make it worth your while going through another procedure? Do you have details about where the belongings or goods are – for example, addresses and contact details.

The county court or High Court

If you have a choice, it can be quicker to apply to the High Court, however, be aware that it can be more expensive and complicated and so you may end up needing to pay for legal advice if you decide to go to the High Court.

Asking for a warrant of control in the County Court

The law calls this step of the procedure ‘issuing’. This is the legal term for starting an application or legal process.

How you ask for (or issue) a warrant of control depends on how you made your claim to start with to get the judgment order.

If you claimed online

If your claim number has the letters MC in it you need to fill in form N323 to ask the court to issue a warrant of control and then sign, print and send it to the court that made the judgment order with the court fee of £91 - you can pay by cheque or postal order. If you are on a low income, you can ask for help with court fees. This is a short form but you need some key details before you can fill it in. These are:

• the claim number – this will be on the judgment order paperwork,
• the debtor’s full name and address,
• the amount of money owed to you in your judgment order,
• other money spent because of the case, such as any court fees or fees for any legal advice you have had.

If the claim number does not have the letters MC in it, you need to apply online via the Money Claims Online website. You will need a credit or debit card to pay the court fee of £91 or you can ask for help with fees.

If you applied by paper

You need to fill in, print and sign the form N323 and post or hand deliver it to the court who made the judgment order. You can pay the court fee of £91 by cheque or postal order. If you are on a low income you can ask for help with fees.

After you have sent your request to the court

A judge does not have to make a decision about the warrant. Instead, it is a procedural step that allows the court bailiff or enforcement officer to tell the debtor a warrant has been issued and give them 7 days to pay the money owed.

If this does not happen, the bailiff will go to the address for the debtor that you gave in the form within 15 days of the date of the warrant. When they go to the address, they can either collect the money from the debtor if they have it or take belongings or goods to sell at auction.

There are costs involved in taking belongings or goods and selling them - for example, collecting the goods, storing them, and selling them. The bailiff will take these costs as well as a fee for working for you from the money generated from the auction sale. The court will send you any money raised. If it is not enough to cover all the expense of the process, the bailiff will visit the debtor again or at another address if you know of one, to see if they can find more belongings or goods that could be sold.

You can only apply for this type of order to enforce your judgment order if the debtor is employed. Also, it is important to bear in mind that if they are employed and you go down this route but they later become unemployed the order you will have spent time and effort and money getting will stop or ‘lapse’ as lawyers call it.

It is a good idea to check the attachment of earnings index before you go down this route. If the debtor has already had this kind of order made against them, you are less likely to get all your money paid this way as there will be one or more other creditors already receiving some of the debtor’s earnings and the debtor must be left with enough to meet their basic living needs.

The court can only make an attachment of earnings order if you can provide details of the debtor’s employer – their name or the company name, together with the address. You will also be asked to give details of where the debtor works and what they do. If you don’t have this information, you can pause here and try and find it. For help with this, go back to Step 2 in the section called Working out if you can and should enforce your order.

Next, we explain how to check if the debtor already has this kind of order in place against their pay, for money they owe to someone else.

How to check the attachment of earnings Index

You need to ask the court to check the attachment of earnings index for you. This is quite a quick and simple process and worth doing before you go down the route of asking for an order.

There are two ways to ask the court. You can either:

• fill in part 1 of form N336 and send it to the court, or,
• write to the court asking for the information. You must include the name and address of the defendant, your claim number, and the date of your judgment.

The court will either complete the rest of the form and send it back to you or write to you to tell you the result of the search. There is no fee for this.

What to do next

When you get the reply from the court you need to look at it carefully and decide if it is worthwhile applying for an attachment of earnings order against the debtor.

If the reply from the court states ‘there are no subsisting entries’ it means there are no orders currently in force telling an employer to hold back money from the debtor’s pay each month to pay to another creditor.

On the other hand, if there are details about another judgment debt with the amount that is being taken and how often, it means the debtor’s pay is already under pressure from another creditor’s order. A large amount suggests that their other debts are significant. A small amount could suggest that the debt is smaller but also that they have a small amount of pay coming in each month and that the court has decided they can only afford a small deduction.

Depending on what information you get in the reply from the court, you will need to decide what to do next. You could read on about the next steps to see what is involved to help you decide if it is worth it. If you can afford any legal advice at this point do try and get some – this will help you decide if it is worth going ahead with another application. Use the Law Society – find a solicitor service.

Applying for an attachment of earnings order

You need to start by filling in form N337. This is a short form where you need to give your details and those of the debtor together with all the information you have on their employer and work situation. You also need to state what money is owed to you. Then you need to print the form and sign it and send it to the court.

These applications go to a central place rather than the actual court that made the judgment order in the first place. The address is:

Civil National Business Centre

St Katherine’s House

21-27 St Katherine’s St

Northampton

NN1 2LH

There is a court fee of £131 to pay. This fee is added to what the debtor owes you but if you are not successful, then the court cannot refund you the fee. You can pay the fee by cheque or postal order or provide your telephone number and ask the court to call you to pay by credit or debit card over the phone. Make sure you include the claim number so the court can find your case on their system. If you are on a low income, you can ask for help with fees.

The court will get in touch with the debtor and tell them you have made this application and that they either need to:

• pay all the money they owe you, or
• give the court information about their employment and financial situation in a document called a ‘statement of means’.

This is an order that allows you to receive money that belongs to the debtor that is held by another person, company, or organisation. Lawyers call the other person, company, or organisation a ‘third party’. In this situation the third party is often (but not always) a bank or building society.

This order is only a useful method if you know quite a lot about the debtor’s financial situation – such as their bank or building society and that they have money in their account. Ideally, you need to know when the debtor is likely to have money in their account. This may of course be very difficult. The reason it would be helpful to know this is because the account is frozen on the date the third party gets the court order. Any money that comes in after is not frozen. If the account is empty on the date of the order it will be a waste of your time and money.

The other thing it is important to know about the bank account or building society is whether it is just in the sole name of the debtor. If the account is a joint account, you cannot get this type of order made against it (unless all the account holders owe you money).

If you think this order will help you enforce your judgment order, read on to understand the process you need to follow.

How to apply for a third party debt order

First, you need to fill in form N349.

To fill in the form you need to add in your details and those of the debtor. You need to add in the details of the judgment order you are trying to enforce and how much money is owed to you. This form calls the debtor the ‘defendant’ in some places and the judgment debtor in others. Likewise, for you, in some places the form calls you the ‘claimant’ and judgment creditor in others.

In section 3 you need to add in details about the bank or building society – the more details you can give the better.

In section 4 you need to fill in details about anyone else who has a claim to the money in the account – you may not know or there may not be anyone else with a claim.

In section 5 you need to explain how you know or why believe the things you have stated about the debtor’s account.

You only need to fill in section 6 if you have applied for other third party orders. If you have, add them here.

This form has a statement of truth attached – read this carefully. It is important to understand that when you sign this you tell the truth. If you are found not to have told the truth to the best of your knowledge and belief, you can be found guilty of something called ‘contempt of court’. This is punishable by a fine, unpaid work and even prison time.

Next steps

You need to send your completed form to the court nearest to where the debtor’s home address is. You can search for the correct court using the debtor’s postcode.

There is a court fee of £131 to pay – remember that you can add this fee to the money the debtor owes you but if you are not successful the court cannot pay back this fee. If you are on a low income, you can ask the court for help with fees.

To pay the fee you can either send a cheque or postal order with the application or if you prefer you can give the court your telephone number and ask them to call you to take payment over the phone, using a credit or debit card.

A judge will look at your application and decide whether to make an order telling the third party to freeze the account of the debtor. This is a temporary order – lawyers call it an ‘interim’ third party debt order.

As long as the judge decides that you have provided sufficient information to warrant the making of a temporary order, it will be made and sent to the third party and you by first class post. Then the court waits 7 days before telling the debtor. This is so the third party has time to freeze the account before the debtor knows about the order. This is only a temporary order because the debtor does not know about it – they have to have the chance to go to court and be heard by the judge before a final order is made.

A charging order is useful if you know the debtor has property, land, or investments, like stocks and shares. If you know that the debtor does not have any of these assets, there is no point in applying for this kind of order.

A ‘charge’ is registered against the asset (often a house or land) so that it cannot be sold without you being paid. Lawyers call this a ‘secured debt’. This charge is for the amount of money you are owed.

Be aware though that a charging order does not mean the debtor has to sell their property and pay you straight away – it just means that you get paid from the sale money when it is sold. Also, if there are already other charges registered against the asset before yours, such as mortgages or other creditors who are owed money – they will have the money they are owed paid first. So, there is no guarantee you will get all that is owed to you.

It is also important to think about how much the property or land is worth – after any mortgages and other charges secured on it are paid off. It might be worth less when sold than what you are actually owed.

You may not be able to find this information out without doing a different application first – see the section called Working out if you can and should enforce your order for a reminder on how to apply to the court to get information from the debtor.

If the debtor only has one property that you could apply to have a charge registered against, this could be their family home. If the debtor owns the property with someone else their rights have to be taken into account by the court too.

Applying for a charging order

If you are applying for a charging order against a property or land you need to fill in form N379.

If you are applying for a charging order against stocks, or shares, or money held by the court that the debtor owns you need a different form – form N380.

Both these forms need information about you, the creditor, the debtor and the money owed.

Technically, as a creditor you could apply to the court to make the debtor bankrupt. This is expensive, time consuming and complicated. In addition to these issues, it also does not mean you will get what you are owed. Making someone bankrupt is a drastic step and you should definitely get legal advice on whether it is a good idea, and how to do it, if you decide you really should.

Assets – money and savings and other valuable items which can be used to pay debts, for example, a house, flat, jewellery or car.

Attachment of earnings order – this is an order telling an employer to take pay from the debtor so it can be passed on to the creditor.

Bankruptcy – is a legal process which ends someone’s liability for debts after a certain period of time, usually a year.

Bringing a claim – starting a court process to bring a legal claim, also called taking someone to court or issuing proceedings.

Charging order – A charging order stops the debtor from selling assets, such as property or land they own, without paying you what they owe you when the sale goes through. A ‘charge’ is recorded against the asset so that it cannot be sold without you being paid. County Court Judgment (CCJ) – this is the name given to final court orders made in the county court ordering one person (or organisation or company) to pay money to another.

Court bailiff – this is a member of court staff who is authorised to enforce court orders. Most commonly, they are allowed to go to the debtor’s home or business and take belongings or goods to sell at auction.

Creditor – someone who is owed money. If you are owed money under a court order and you are not paid within the correct time you can apply to enforce the order. You are then called the creditor or sometimes the ‘judgment creditor’.  

Debtor – a person who owes money to someone else.

Defendant – person or organisation the case is brought against. If you enforce an order made against the defendant, the defendant is then often called the ‘debtor’ or sometimes the ‘judgment debtor’.

Debt Respite Scheme (Breathing Space) – this is a government scheme that gives people with problem debt a short period of breathing space from contact and applications from creditors while they look at their finances and get advice.

Enforcement proceedings – legal proceedings to try to force someone to obey a court order, for example to pay you or return something belonging to you.

Enquiry agent – a person or business who can be hired to find someone or to find things out about someone, for example, if they have assets.

High Court enforcement officer – staff of private companies who are authorised to enforce High Court orders and take belongings or goods from a debtor’s home or business.

Insolvent – when a person or company cannot pay its debts.

Judgment – the court’s decision.

Judgment debt – the amount of money the court has ordered one person must pay another person (or organisation or company).

Legal proceedings – taking someone to court. This can also be known as taking legal action, going to court, or litigation.

Litigant in person – a person bringing or defending a claim without a solicitor or barrister.

Order to obtain information – an order telling the debtor to come to court and give details about their financial situation.

Third party debt order – an order that allows you to receive money that belongs to the debtor that is held by another person, company, or organisation. Lawyers call the other person, company, or organisation a ‘third party’.

Warrant of control – a county court document that allows court bailiffs or enforcement officers to take belongings that the debtor owns and sell them at auction. The money from the sale pays off the debt.

Writ of control – A writ of control is similar to a warrant of control but you can only use this process in the High Court. It can be quicker to use the High Court. To apply in the High Court the amount of money you are owed must be at least £600. If the debt is £5,000 or more the case needs to be transferred to the High Court.

To find a solicitor go to the Law Society find a solicitor page and use your postcode to find a firm near you. Be aware, that there is no legal aid available for this kind of case. The options below explain where you might be able to get free legal advice.

The Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau can provide free ongoing legal advice if you are involved in any civil case in the County Court, High Court, or Court of Appeal across England and Wales. They can also provide help if you have permission to appeal to the High Court.

To apply for an advice appointment, download the civil assessment form from their civil legal advice page, complete it, and email to [email protected]. They will assess your advice needs and either send you a link to book an appointment or give you details of who else can help you.

Law Centres offer free face-to-face legal advice to local residents, and some run a telephone advice line. Find out if there is a law centre near you.

LawWorks supports a network of over 200 free legal advice clinics that provide initial advice to individuals on various areas of law. Use their search to see if there is a clinic near you offering advice on the area of law you need help with by phone, email, digitally or in person. In order to use the time efficiently, please see What to bring to your appointment at a LawWorks clinic (PDF).

Citizens Advice can offer practical advice on lots of issues. Their contact us allows you to search for your local Citizens Advice service, and provides details about their national helpline, their online advice service and other services. Be aware that the national helpline is not free. Calls are charged at the same rate as calls to landlines. 

Disclaimer

The information in this guide applies to England and Wales only. The law may be different if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The law is complicated. We have simplified things in this guide. Please don’t rely on this guide as a complete statement of the law. We recommend you try and get advice from the sources we have suggested.

The cases we refer to are not always real but show a typical situation. We have included them to help you think about how to deal with your own situation.

Acknowledgments

This guide was produced by Advicenow. We would like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the guide and especially Kiara McClelland, Ayomikun Salami, Libertad Seoane, Lucy Matthews, and editorial teams at Thomson Reuters.

This guide was updated thanks to funding from the Ministry of Justice via the Online Support and Advice Grant.