ccj, county court judgements

County court judgments (CCJs) in England and Wales have risen for the first year since 1991, according to statistics released today by Registry Trust.

Successive year-on-year falls were registered throughout the nineties as economic conditions improved. However, in 2005 the number of consumer judgments rose for the first time in over 14 years and consumer CCJs increased by nearly 7% to 573,321 (excluding DVLA CCJs).

In addition to this, there were approximately 18,000 judgments a month resulting from a 2004 DVLA policy of obtaining judgments against people failing to pay road tax. Taking these into account the number of consumer judgments increased by 178,938. By contrast commercial judgments against businesses or firms fell by around 4% to 154,785.

Malcolm Hurlston, chairman of Registry Trust, said: “The rise in CCJs provides further evidence of difficulties in the personal lending sector. It shows that lenders are increasingly prepared to use the courts to recover bad debts which places the CCJ as a key element of a healthy, responsible credit industry.”