This guide explains what happens to an unpaid County Court Judgment once it is six years old, in England and Wales. It is not legal advice.
Overview
Two things happen to a CCJ at the six-year mark, and only one of them is in your favour.
The register entry is removed automatically, so the judgment stops appearing on the public register and stops being visible to lenders through credit files. That part is genuinely finished.
The judgment itself is not. It does not lapse, expire or convert into a statute-barred debt in the way an ordinary unenforced contract debt does. What changes is how much friction a creditor faces in enforcing it — and, in practice, how likely they are to bother.
Quick Answer (Read This First)
An unpaid CCJ remains legally owed after six years. The creditor's position changes in three specific ways:
- Most enforcement now needs the court's permission. Under CPR 83.2, a creditor seeking to issue a writ or warrant of control on a judgment six years old or more must apply for permission first. Permission is discretionary, and unexplained delay is a common reason to refuse it.
- No fresh action can be brought on the judgment. Section 24(1) of the Limitation Act 1980 bars an action upon a judgment after six years. This bars suing on the judgment; it does not bar executing the existing one, which is why the permission route under CPR 83.2 exists at all.
- Interest recovery is capped. Section 24(2) prevents recovery of more than six years' arrears of interest on a judgment debt, however long the judgment has been outstanding.
What has not changed: the debt is owed, the creditor can still ask for payment, and some enforcement routes remain open without permission.
What Still Works Without Permission
Asking. Nothing prevents a creditor or a debt purchaser writing to you, calling you, or offering a settlement on an old judgment. Contact is not enforcement, and there is no age limit on it.
Charging orders already in place. A charging order secures the judgment against your property. Where one exists, an application for an order for sale to realise that security is not treated in the same way as an action on the judgment, and courts have entertained such applications years after the original judgment. An old, unpaid CCJ secured on a house you still own is the scenario that most often surprises people at the point of sale or remortgage.
Insolvency routes. There is no express statutory limitation period on a bankruptcy petition founded on a judgment debt, although substantial delay can be relevant to whether the petition is an abuse of process. The minimum debt for a creditor's bankruptcy petition is £5,000.
What Needs the Court's Permission
Taking control of goods — the modern form of what most people still call bailiff enforcement — is the main route affected. So are the other execution methods where the judgment has aged past six years.
The court weighs several things when deciding whether to grant permission: why the creditor did not enforce sooner, whether the delay was within the creditor's control, whether your circumstances have changed in ways that make late enforcement unfair, and whether there is a good reason the judgment was not pursued.
Case law analysis is consistent on one point: simple neglect or inaction by a creditor is a weak basis for permission. A creditor who lost the file for eight years and rediscovered it after a credit search is in a much worse position than one who has been waiting for you to leave a period of genuine hardship.
If a creditor does apply, you are entitled to be heard on it. That is the point at which the reasons for the delay get tested, and it is worth taking free advice from MoneyHelper or a debt charity rather than ignoring the paperwork.
Interest: The Number That Grows While Nothing Happens
County court judgments of £5,000 or more carry interest at 8% a year under the County Courts (Interest on Judgment Debts) Order 1991. Judgments below that threshold generally do not carry statutory interest, though contractual interest can apply in limited circumstances.
At 8%, a £10,000 judgment accrues £800 a year. Over six years, that is £4,800 — before the section 24(2) cap on recovering more than six years' arrears of interest bites.
This is why an old judgment can be presented to you at a figure far larger than the sum you remember. It is also why settlement negotiations on aged judgments are often more productive than they look: a creditor holding a stale judgment with permission problems and a large interest component has real reasons to take a reduced lump sum. Our guide on negotiating with creditors covers how to approach that without resetting anything.
Does Acknowledging It Restart the Clock?
For an ordinary debt, a payment or a written acknowledgement restarts the six-year limitation period — the mechanism explained in our guide on what resets the six-year clock.
A judgment debt does not work the same way. The six years under section 24(1) run from the date the judgment became enforceable, and the CPR 83.2 permission requirement attaches to the age of the judgment. Making a payment on an old judgment does not reopen a fresh six-year enforcement window in the way it would on a simple contract debt.
That does not make payments risk-free in every context, and it certainly does not make the debt go away. But the fear that specifically stops people negotiating on old CCJs — that any contact hands the creditor a new six years — is misplaced here.
Do You Still Have to Declare It?
Answer the question you are actually asked.
Most lender and insurer questions are time-bounded: "in the last six years". A judgment that is more than six years old falls outside that, and it will not appear on your credit file either, because the register entry has gone.
Some applications — certain professional registrations, some rental and licensing forms — ask whether you have ever had a judgment. That question is not limited by the register, and answering it inaccurately is a separate problem from the debt itself.
What This Means in Practice
If you are looking at an old, unpaid CCJ, three things are usually true at once. Your credit file is clear of it. The creditor's enforcement options have narrowed to routes that either need a judge's permission or depend on security they already hold. And the balance, if the judgment was £5,000 or more, is considerably larger than you remember.
The two situations that genuinely need attention are a charging order on a property you still own, and a creditor who is actively applying for permission to enforce. Everything else is a debt that is owed, hard to collect, and often settleable.
For the register side of the story — what disappears at six years, and what it means for credit applications — see our guide on what actually happens to a CCJ after six years, and on removal routes before then, how to get a CCJ removed.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Sources and Further Reading
This guide draws on the following legislation, court rules and official sources:
- Limitation Act 1980
- County Courts (Interest on Judgment Debts) Order 1991
- Civil Procedure Rules Part 83 — writs and warrants
- Insolvency Act 1986
- GOV.UK — County court judgments for debt
Free, impartial money guidance is available from MoneyHelper, the government-backed service run by the Money and Pensions Service.
Related: How to Get a CCJ Removed | The UK 6-Year Debt Rule | All debt guides.
