If you have received a judgment from the Court, this means that a company or individual has issued a claim against you/your company, and you have not responded, therefore a Court has formally decided that you owe the Claimant the sum of money quoted on the judgment. You had 14 days to respond to the claim by lodging with the Court an Acknowledgement of Service or providing your Defence to the Court as well as to the Claimants (sending the Acknowledgment to the Court extends the time to defend to 28 days). A judgment can affect an individual or company’s credit rating, so it is important to act promptly if you receive one.
You have several options once a judgment is received. If you are not disputing the claim, you could pay the Judgment in full. If you pay within one month you can get the Judgment removed from the register. If you pay later than one month from the Judgment, the Court register will be marked as “satisfied”. Records of Judgments are kept for 6 years on the register, and this is likely to affect your credit rating.
If you or your company do not have sufficient funds to pay the Judgment, you can try and negotiate payments by way of instalments, or if that is not possible, make an application to Court for what is called an Instalment Order.
If you or your company does not owe the money, or you did not receive the proceedings, an application can be made to Court to set aside the default Judgment. This application is made using Form N244, and a fee will need to be paid to the Court. The application must include a full explanation as to why you as a Defendant did not respond to the original claim form.
The judgment entered in default can be set aside in two ways;
- If the judgment has been wrongly entered; or
- If the judgment has been entered correctly (served at the correct or the last known address of the Defendant), the Court has discretion to set aside the judgment.
If the judgment has been wrongly entered, the Court must set it aside.
If the judgment is valid, the Court has discretion to set it aside for the following reasons:
- the Defendant has a good prospect of successfully defending the claim;
- the Court can see another good reason;
- the judgment should be set aside or varied; or
- the Court feels the Defendant should be given more time to defend the claim.
The Court will also consider how promptly the application to set aside the Judgment has been made when exercising its discretion. If the application to set aside is made without adequate explanation for the delay, there is a risk that the Court may not exercise its discretion in favour of the Defendant.
