As long as your judgment is for £600 or above, you can transfer it to the High Court for enforcement by The Sheriffs Office. Please visit our 'Judgment enforcement' page for more information.

Simply instruct us, pay the court fee and we will handle the rest.

The more information you can provide the better the chances of successful enforcement. If you can, provide details of the following: what the debt relates to, any additional addresses, phone numbers, places of work, vehicle details, asset details and any other information that may assist enforcement.

We can enforce Judgments or Orders up to 6 years of age.

His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) charges a court fee for a writ of possession or writ of control.

No, it remains a County Court Judgment and is only passed to the High Court for the purposes of enforcement. Any representations by either party would still be made to the issuing county court.

This depends on the speediness of the issuing County Court. It is normally 5 to 28 days. You can speed up the process by personally attending the issuing Court and having part 2 of the Form N293A sealed. Once we have received the sealed Form N293A from the court we will arrange for the Writ to be sealed by the High Court (or district registry) within 24 hours.

We legally have to hold the funds for 14 days. Payment will be issued after this period. When you complete the instruction form, we will ask you for details of the bank account where funds are to be remitted.

No. Usually the attendance of an Enforcement Agent and the threat of removal will result in payment. Less than 1% of all cases end in removal.

No. However, if they are part of the seizure and ownership has been claimed, but not been proved, then we would request that you either admit or deny the claim.

Our Enforcement Agents would advise if there may be further assets. If there are, then they would return to remove these also. If not, we would request your further information on any further assets you may be aware of.

In the unlikely event that goods are removed, they will be sold by public auction. This may be a physical auction or an online auction. Very occasionally we can sell goods by private treaty but would need the authority of either the Court or the defendant.

After payment of the judgment, interest, costs, fees and charges have been settled, any surplus would be repaid to the defendant.

Yes, but we would usually request your permission first. If judgment is set aside, then enforcement action will cease.

You can instruct our tracing agents to arrange an in-depth trace on the defendant. Please contact our enforcement team using the contact details provided.

You will be liable for our full fees should this be the case. We would ask that once the enforcement process has started you allow us to continue until such time as the debt is repaid in full.

Once the 14 clear days notice of enforcement period has passed, if payment has not been made, we aim to have an enforcement agent in attendance as soon as possible.

Yes we do. Please contact us on 0333 001 5100 for further details.

No, Scotland has a different system. However, if the defendant is based in England or Wales, we can enforce a Scottish judgment.

If the defendant is based in England or Wales or has assets located here, then the overseas judgment can be enforced by us. You can read more here.

Yes, we are set up to support organisations with large numbers of judgments. Please contact us on 0333 001 5100 to find out more.

Our policy is to ensure that the operations of the business do not have any negative impact upon vulnerable consumers, whose ability or circumstances require us to take extra precautions in the way that we sell and provide our services in order to ensure that they are not disadvantaged in any way.

Our fees are incurred as the enforcement progresses through the various stages of enforcement. When part payment is recovered, the amount is shared between The Sheriffs Office and the judgment creditor.

The writ lasts for 12 months from the date of the Notice of Enforcement is served. If a payment arrangement is entered into by the debtor and then they break It, the writ will be valid for a further 12 months from that point. It can be renewed if required.

The Notice of Enforcement forms part of the compliance stage of enforcement (the first stage). With effect from 1st May 2026, the notice of enforcement (NoE) is served on the debtor giving them 14 clear days to pay the debt in full. If they do not, enforcement is moved to enforcement stage 1.

If a debtor is working with a debt advice provider, they may apply to extend the notice period to 28 days, before the expiry of the NoE. This applies to debtors and debt types that are covered within the Breathing Space legislation introduced in 2020.

Yes, the vehicle will be immobilised to secure it and the enforcement agent will serve a notice of immobilisation. If after two hours, the debtor has not paid either in full or entered into a payment arrangement, then the enforcement agent may remove the vehicle for sale.

Once goods have been removed for sale, the judgment debtor will be given seven clear days' notice of sale.

We will keep you updated at every stage and send you a report by email whenever our system is updated. If we haven’t sent an email report, there is no update, so please wait rather than phone us.

We apply to court for the writ of control. The court can take up to 28 days but is usually less. Any court backlogs are outside our control.

Once we get the writ, we send a Notice of Enforcement to the debtor. This gives them 14 clear days to pay in full to avoid an enforcement agent visit. The 14-day notice excludes the day of posting, day of delivery, Sundays and bank holidays. That can mean up to 20 days in total.

We send the Notice of Enforcement on the day we receive it – or the following working day if our mail has already been collected.

By law we are only permitted to enforce at an address where the debtor resides or operates a trading business.

Where the registered address is that of the debtor's accountant, but not a trading location, we are not permitted to enforce at that address.

If you haven’t already given us details of a second address in the instruction form, please send us that so we can send the Notice of Enforcement to both addresses.

We cannot enforce at an address where the debtor is an employee.

If there is a vehicle, please give us the details, including the registration number. Only when we see the vehicle during a visit, can we check for finance and registered keeper details.

We are unable to take control of vehicles subject to finance or that are not registered to the person named on the writ. We can only take control of vehicles or other assets at the address/es we have issued a Notice of Enforcement.

Please don’t send us details of beauty salons, pubs or sports clubs the debtor goes to and don’t send us confidential information like their bank account details or passport.

The writ only allows us to visit the enforcement address and take control of the debtor’s goods.

When removing goods for sale, we look at the value they are likely to achieve at auction, and must balance this against the cost of removal, any associated disbursements and the auctioneer’s fees, which will be deducted from the proceeds of sale.

We will only remove goods for sale where they are likely to raise all or most of the debt due under the writ, plus enforcement fees.

If the registered office address (i.e. where the company is registered at Companies House) is a location where the company operates from, then we are permitted to attend to enforce, provided the Notice of Enforcement has been sent to that address.

If the registered office is not a trading address of the company named on the writ of control, for example, it is the location of the debtor's accountant, by law we are not permitted to enforce at that address, nor can we ask their accountants to disclose any information relating to the company.

To obtain information about a debtor, there is a procedure to obtain information via the court.