Securing a fast transfer up to the High Court

The process of recovering money can take time – from credit control, through to making a claim, possibly a court hearing and then obtaining judgment.

Should the judgment debtor still not pay, the creditor may then choose to take enforcement action. Once of the most effective options available to them is to transfer up the judgment to the High Court and instruct a High Court Enforcement Officer (HCEO) to enforce it under a writ of control.

£71 to instruct

The only cost at this stage is the court fee.

It is not always possible to recover the money owed – sometimes there are simply no assets available or the debtor is insolvent – in which case all there is to pay is a compliance fee if nothing can be recovered.

The compliance fee should only be charged where it is applicable at the end of the case. At HCE Group, we only charge the compliance fee at the end of the case if, after all our enforcement efforts, it has not been possible to recover the debt.

Speed of transfer up to the High Court

Most money judgments are awarded in the County Court. These can be transferred to the High Court for enforcement without requiring leave from the court. In the past, this process could take up to 28 days.

But we have made it our mission to make this process as fast as possible – speeding up not just the transfer-up, but also the first attendance of an enforcement agent – to so that we can start enforcement proceedings.

48-hour turnaround

For the majority of cases, we are able to transfer up and obtain the writ of control within 48 hours (Monday to Friday) of the instruction being put into our system. Once we received the sealed writ back from the court, we will issue the notice of enforcement either the same day or the following day.

As a result, an instruction received on Monday will typically result in the notice of enforcement dispatched by the Thursday, possibly even the Wednesday in some cases.

Automatic attendance

Prompt action is always important in enforcement, in case the debtor is disposing of assets or there are claims on those assets from other creditors. With this in mind, our systems are also designed to automatically allocate an enforcement agent (EA) to make an attendance once the notice of enforcement has expired.

All our enforcement agents have a tablet and electronically receive all the relevant paperwork, including access to the case history and any specific instructions received from the client. They also have an app to manage the case in situ, including setting up payment arrangements, send a voice recorded attendance report for transcription and upload images and video.

All these measures have been designed with our client in mind, so that we can make the whole enforcement process, especially the transfer up, as fast as possible.