Enforcement Jurisdiction - cross country (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland)

tentimes

Hi,

I have spent most of the day trying to find information on how debts are enforced if you move from one part of the UK to another. For example, I have moved back to Northern Ireland and was wondering how council tax and some credit card debts are likely to be enforced.

For those that are interested I have found a very useful manual, part of HM Customs training and reference, which cites the carious vehicles for doing this.

Long story short, any county court judgement can be enforced in another country in the UK, but a certificate of money provisions from the order must be provided to the court in the new jurisdiction, at which point their enforcements procedures take precedence.

In my case this means that for each enforceable debt the creditor must apply for the cert, then ask the Enforcements of Judgements office to then enforce it. The rules for Northern Ireland seem quite fair, though I am not sure what the track record for charging orders is (they seem less keen on it).

Anyway, this resource is at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/dmbmanual/Index.htm

Another useful doc for me in Northern Ireland:

"http://www.courtsni.gov.uk/sitecollectiondocuments/northern ireland courts gallery/business area docs - ejo/p_ejo_enforcing_judgment_outside_ni.doc"

Going through this (researching) I am wondering is there any way to deposit reference material to MSE for others who might be searching in the future. Can this be done? There is definitely a lack of good material on cross country (but within UK) debt matters, and even less local information. Plus the local agencies are less likely to have information online. Certainly the CAB material for N Ireland is limited.

Anyway, I just thought I would share this for anyone who might search in future.

tentimes

Oh and here is the actual legislation:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/27/schedule/6

The contents are here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/27/contents

Another thing that may be of interest is that DRO's (debt relief orders) are now active in Northern Ireland, though only 36 have been issued to date!