There are exactly two ways to find out whether a county court judgment has been registered against you — and one of them is free. Most people don’t need to pay anything at all, but the paid route exists for a reason, and knowing which one you need takes about thirty seconds.
The short version: check your credit report first. Every CCJ registered in England and Wales is passed to the credit reference agencies, so it shows up there at no cost. Only reach for the paid official register if you’re checking a business, checking someone else, or your free report came back clean and you’re still not convinced.
Already know you have one? The date it was entered decides everything — pay in full within one calendar month and it can be wiped from the register completely, as though it never existed. A day later and the best you can get is “satisfied”, which stays on your file for six years. Our free CCJ Checker takes your dates and tells you which route is still open, which form to send, and what it costs.
Method 1 — Check your credit report (free)
This is where almost everyone should start, and it answers the question for the overwhelming majority of people.
When a court enters a judgment against you, the record goes to Registry Trust, which maintains the official register — and from there it’s shared with the credit reference agencies. That means a CCJ against your name will appear on your credit file whether or not anyone ever told you about it.
Where to look on the report
Open your credit report and find the section called public records (some agencies label it “court information” or “public information”). A registered CCJ will show:
- The judgment date — the single most important piece of information, because the one-month cancellation window runs from it
- The amount of the judgment
- The court that issued it
- The case number — you’ll need this for any court form
- The status — satisfied or unsatisfied
If that section is empty, you almost certainly don’t have a CCJ.
Check all three agencies
There are three credit reference agencies in the UK — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — and they don’t hold identical data. A creditor may have reported to one and not the others, and lenders don’t all check the same agency either. Checking all three is free and takes a few minutes.
Checking your own report is a soft search. It leaves no footprint, it doesn’t affect your credit score, and no lender can see that you looked. You have a legal right to see this information, so nobody can charge you for the underlying statutory report.
Method 2 — Search the official register (£6–£10)
The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines is the statutory record, maintained by Registry Trust on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. It is the actual source that the credit agencies copy from. The only public way to search it is TrustOnline, and it always costs money — roughly £6 to search one register, up to about £10 to search all of them (England & Wales plus Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey and the Republic of Ireland).
When paying is actually worth it
- You’re checking a business. Company judgments don’t appear on your personal credit file. If you’re about to trade with a supplier, take on a builder, or extend credit to a company, this is the check that matters.
- You’re checking someone else. You don’t need their permission — the register is public. Landlords and employers use it for exactly this reason.
- Your free report is clean but you’re still uneasy — for instance, you’ve had post go missing after a house move, or a debt you’d disputed went quiet in a way that felt too easy.
- You need the definitive record, straight from the source, rather than a copy.
The address trap
The register is searched by name and address, not by name alone. If you’ve moved in the last six years, a search against your current address may come back clean while a judgment sits happily against an old one — which is precisely how most people end up with a CCJ they never knew about. To be genuinely certain, you may need to run a separate search for each address you’ve lived at during that period, and the cost multiplies accordingly.
This is the one real advantage the paid search has over a credit report: it will find a judgment tied to an address you’d forgotten about. It’s also why the free route should still come first — it’s free, and it catches the common case.
Why no website can check the register for you for free
If you search for this, you will find sites promising a “free instant CCJ check”. Be sceptical of every one of them.
The register is not open data. There’s no free public API, no bulk feed anyone can query on your behalf, and no back channel. Registry Trust does license bulk judgment data commercially, but that’s aimed at lenders’ credit and risk teams, and it comes with terms that don’t permit reselling it as a free consumer lookup.
So when a site offers a free instant check, one of two things is happening. Either it’s simply showing you a credit report — which you can get yourself, free, without an intermediary — or it’s harvesting your personal details to sell you something, usually “CCJ removal” services. Neither is a search of the register.
Our own CCJ Checker says the same thing on the page itself: it cannot look you up, and it doesn’t ask you to hand over your name, address or email to find out. It works from what you already know — your dates — and tells you what you can actually do about it.
You’ve found a CCJ. What happens now?
There are only four ways a judgment leaves the register, and dates decide which one applies to you:
- Pay in full within one calendar month of the judgment date — you can apply for a certificate of cancellation and the CCJ is removed from the register entirely, as if it had never happened. Form N443, £19. This does not happen automatically: paying the debt is not enough, and if you never send the form the judgment sits on your file for six years anyway. It is the single most commonly missed step in the whole process.
- Pay after that month — the best available outcome is a certificate of satisfaction: the entry stays for six years but is marked as paid. Same form, same £19. Worth doing regardless, because an unpaid CCJ is the version that gets mortgage applications declined outright.
- Get the judgment set aside — available if you never received the claim form (typically because it went to an old address) or the debt genuinely isn’t yours. Form N244, and the court fee is £321 on notice or £126 by consent or without notice. If it’s granted, the judgment is wiped. But be clear-eyed: setting it aside revives the original claim, so you’ll need to defend it or settle, and courts weigh heavily how quickly you acted once you found out.
- Wait six years from the judgment date and it drops off the register automatically. Nobody can make that happen sooner, and you don’t need to do anything to make it happen at all.
Feed your dates into the CCJ Checker and it will tell you which of these is still open to you, with a countdown to the one-month deadline if you’re still inside it.
“I’ve never heard of this CCJ”
A judgment you knew nothing about usually means one of three things, and they’re worth separating:
- The claim went to an old address. This is by far the most common explanation. You moved, the creditor used the address they had on file, the court posted to it, and judgment was entered in your absence. This is the classic ground for a set-aside — you had no real opportunity to defend.
- Mistaken identity. Someone with a similar name at a similar address. It happens, and it’s fixable.
- Identity fraud. Someone took credit in your name. If the debt isn’t yours at all and you never lived where the claim was sent, treat it as fraud: report it, and apply to set the judgment aside.
In all three cases, act quickly. The strength of a set-aside application depends heavily on how promptly you moved once you discovered the judgment. Months of silence are hard to explain to a judge. Get free advice from StepChange or National Debtline before you file — both are charities, both are free, and neither will charge you for the form.
Should you pay a company to check or remove a CCJ?
No, in almost every case. An entire industry exists around CCJ removal, and its pitch depends on you not knowing the numbers above. A certificate costs £19. A set-aside costs £126 to £321, paid directly to the court, not to a middleman. Nobody has a special relationship with the register: only a court can change an entry, and Registry Trust cannot amend one on request — not for you, and not for anyone acting on your behalf.
If a firm promises to remove a valid, properly served, unpaid CCJ, they are promising something they cannot deliver. And if the fee itself is the obstacle, the court’s Help with Fees scheme can reduce or waive it entirely.
Frequently asked questions
Does checking for a CCJ hurt my credit score?
No. Looking at your own credit report is a soft search — invisible to lenders and with no effect on your score. Searching the official register leaves no footprint either.
How long does a CCJ stay on my credit file?
Six years from the judgment date — not from the date you pay it. It then drops off automatically.
I paid it. Why is it still showing?
Because paying doesn’t update the record; you have to tell the court. Send form N443 with proof of payment and the £19 fee. If you paid within one calendar month of judgment, ask for cancellation, not satisfaction — that removes it entirely.
Can I get a mortgage with a CCJ?
It’s harder, but not impossible. An unpaid CCJ is the real obstacle and many high-street lenders will decline outright. A satisfied one — especially if it’s small, old and isolated — is workable with specialist lenders and a larger deposit. The impact softens with age and disappears entirely at six years.
If the CCJ drops off after six years, is the debt gone?
No. Coming off the register affects your credit file, not the debt. A judgment debt remains enforceable, though a creditor needs the court’s permission to enforce a judgment more than six years old. If you’re being chased over an old judgment, take free advice before you pay or acknowledge anything.
Where to go from here
- CCJ Checker — enter your dates and see whether the judgment can still be wiped completely, which form you need, and what it costs
- Debt payoff calculator — work out the fastest and cheapest order to clear what you owe
- How to get out of debt — the practical steps, in order
- How to improve your credit score — what actually moves the needle after a CCJ
- Free UK debt help — the charities worth talking to, and what each one does
A county court judgment is a legal matter, and the right move depends on your circumstances. The information on this page is general guidance based on the rules for England and Wales, not legal or financial advice — court fees quoted are correct at the time of writing and change periodically, so check the current EX50 fee list before paying anything. If you’re struggling with debt, free and independent help is available from StepChange and National Debtline — you never need to pay for debt advice.
Last updated: July 2026