Are you dealing with a CCJ? Do you want to know the duration of its stay on your credit file? Since it can seriously damage your credit scores, you might have to let go of potential financial opportunities.
Now, you must be alert about this situation to do what is needed to recover from it. What is a CCJ? This is an order issued by the Court of Wales, England and Northern Ireland. You receive this order when you have defaulted payments to creditors.
This order is like a final alarm to you that repayment should be done right away. When the creditor has failed to obtain the payments from you, CCJ gets issued. Once you miss payments, the company will try reaching out to you to catch up.
It is well and good if you meet the pending payments. Otherwise, they will contact the court to issue an order against you.
CCJs do not appear like a surprise as you will already have a confrontation with the creditor. This is legal action taken by the creditor after multiple failed attempts to get payments from you.
What should be done once you receive the CCJ claim? It must be a priority now and you must not ignore it at any cost. With this order, you get a window of 30 days within which you can settle the outstanding payments. If you are able to do this, you can avoid CCJ against your name for a longer duration. You will not have to live under the obligation of facing any legal action.
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Dig deeper to have a thorough understanding of the duration of time you will have to linger CCJs on your credit profile. Take a tour of a few questions that can help you fetch an answer to this very question.
Is it going to be too long for CCJ to stay on the credit file?
As mentioned above, you will get a grace period to utilise and repay debts. If you still fail to clear the debts, the CCJ is going to stay on your credit file for the next six years. It also includes the public register of judgements, orders, and fines.
Each credit reference agency will then reflect it as a CCJ on your credit report from the date the court has issued it. The meaning of this is that accessing loans or any external funding would be difficult for you. This is because lenders will consider your profile to be highly risky.
They might be apprehensive about the possibility of getting money back from you. For this reason, you cannot think of applying for personal loans, credit cards, car loans, mortgages, etc. Above all, you might even have to face hardship to open a bank account in your name.
Your credit report records different types of items. They have different stay duration on your credit file.
Type of items |
Duration of stay on credit report |
Soft search |
No impact on credit scores |
Hard search |
2 years |
Delinquent payment |
7 years |
Defaulted account |
7 years |
County Court Judgement(CCJ) |
6 years |
Foreclosure |
7 years |
Bankruptcy |
7 to 10 years |
Nevertheless, CCJ will gradually become less impactful with time. There is no reason for you to worry about its impact remaining the same throughout this duration. Once CCJ starts getting older, your credit score will start improving.
After 6 years, CCJ will no longer be in your credit file. During this traverse, you can see a slow but gradual improvement in your credit scores. Finally, when CCJ has been removed, your credit history must have improved to a great extent.
Although after its removal you do not have to worry much, some lenders might still enquire you about past CCJs.
When can this court order be set aside? Is it a special case?
In some cases, the court might consider cancelling or setting aside your CCJ. It happens if you have reported this order as a dispute with a strong reason to support your actions. Thus, is it possible for you to send a request to keep CCJ aside?
On what grounds can you ask for this provision? These are the basic reasons why this court order can be set aside.
- The lender incorrectly entered the amount you owe
- You did not receive the order since it might have been sent to the wrong address
- The order did not reach you and got lost in midway
- You took out the debt six years back and thus have no obligation
- You feel like the order does not coincide with the ultimate law
To apply for CCJ to be set aside, you will be required to complete a respective form.
What should you be wary about CCJ on your credit file?
One most important thing that you should not forget is that it can impact your credit scores significantly. There is no way you can keep CCJ separate from your credit profile. It influences your overall borrowing potential.
Here are the things that you have to go through when a CCJ order is issued.
Decreasing credit scores: Your scores will drop significantly, which will impact your creditworthiness. Getting acceptance for loans would be very difficult and be impossible. You will be treated as higher-risk borrowers. Thus, you can qualify to obtain limited access to external funding options.
Increasing borrowing cost: Even if a lender gets ready to offer you financial help, they might charge a rate of interest. This is obviously because of the very low credit scores. Since the lending risk is quite sizeable in your case, the loan provider is bound to levy a high rate to mitigate the risk.
Impact your credit limit: If you have a credit card and face CCJ, the provider will most likely cancel your services. Although they agree to continue, they might restrict the credit limit you can access.
The bottom line
Take note of the duration for which you have to bear CCJ charges on your credit file. Put in your efforts to pay back debts at the earliest and at least within a month.