Getting a mortgage when you have a County Court Judgement against your name can be difficult. However, if you contact Crystal Clear Home Loans, a CCJ mortgage specialist who has expertise in finding mortgages for people with CCJs, you might be surprised at the range of products available.

Our specialist advisors have access to a panel of lenders in the UK who will consider people with current and historic CCJs. Everybody’s circumstances are different; as such it would be useful for you to have any information to hand which confirms your current Credit status. This will enable us to determine the extent by which your CCJ status may affect your ability to borrow.

If you have a personal loan or credit card and you fail to make the payments, the creditor (a person or company to whom you owe money), must issue you with a “default notice” before they take legal action. A default normally occurs when the terms of a credit agreement have not been met and the account is 3-6 months in arrears.

The creditor can start court proceedings if you do not comply with the default notice and this can lead to the registering of a CCJ. The default will be registered on your credit file and will show the date that you broke the relevant term of the credit agreement, the amount owed at the time the term was broken (the default) and the amount still owed to that account.

The County Court will make an order that you must repay the debt and this will then be listed on your credit file. In Scotland a CCJ is known as a “Decree” and is issued by the local Sheriff Courts.

If you receive notification of a CCJ, you will have one month in which to pay the amount in full before the CCJ becomes registered with the Register of County Court Judgements. Once the CCJ has been registered, even if you pay it in full at a later date, it remains on your credit file for six years.

This will affect your credit history; however do not worry as it may still be possible to get finance from our specialist lenders. The lender will be able to see if you have paid the debt. Regardless of the reason as to how your County Court Judgement was acquired, most high street banks and building societies feel uneasy about lending to people who, in their opinion, have proved that they cannot maintain an agreed repayment schedule.

The specialist lenders take a different approach. They assess an application for lending, looking for reasons to lend, rather than reasons not to lend. They exercise discretion to consider each application on an individual basis. As such it is possible to get a mortgage with CCJs if you speak to the right people.

If you have paid your CCJ you should apply to the court where your case was heard for a Certificate of Satisfaction. This will cost you £10. Should a CCJ have been put on your file incorrectly, you should contact the County Court, quoting the case reference number included in your credit file report. If the judgement has been recorded in error the court will issue a Certificate of Cancellation.