Thank you king12345

Ah ok, well thanks for that virtual slap in the face. I shan't bother wasting further time on this. Nice to know whose side you are on.....

I can't edit the text no matter how many times I try. I guess nobody will help me

I tried to edit the text - will do it again

Hello all, is there any chance someone can advise me about leaving a room in a shared house during the initial rental period?

Exactly. It is still unsecured at the moment. It will only become secured if and when a charging order is granted by the court following the judgment that has been obtained.

I can't give debt advice, only info regarding County Court processes and enforcement issues.

I'm afraid all I know is that once a CCJ has been obtained a creditor is entitled to begin the charging order process. Sorry if that doesn't help

There are TWO parts to the CO process: Interim and Final. Interim Charging Orders are granted automatically by the Court. All the relevant parties are notified of this and sent a copy of the Interim Charging Order, which the creditor will then register at the Land REgistry. However, this is only the first stage. Once an ICO has been granted, the Court will set a date for a hearing to determine whether a Final Charging Order should be granted. You will have at least 21 days notice of the hearing, which is enough time to prepare your case against the granting of an Order. This is where you will need advice tailored to your particular circumstances. You must attend the hearing. The Judge will consider your arguments and make a decision. It may be that a further Order is granted but on certain conditions rather than a simple yes or no.

Yes, the debtor must be served with a copy of the application and other relevant documentation to advise them that the application has been lodged with the Court. The creditor must also provide copies of the same documentation to ALL other interested parties (mortgage co, other secured lenders, anyone else with a financial interest in the property). Once this has been done the creditor has to send documents to the Court called Certificates of Service, as evidence that they sent copies of the application to all interested parties. If they fail to provide you with copies of the application documents then the Judge can strike out their application (i.e. bin it!) as they did not follow correct procedure. It is always worth contacting the creditor and/or their solicitors first, though, just to see if there is any way of holding off the application and working out a settlement of some sort.

Maximus - it's back to the Court for another hearing. No Order for Sale would be automatically granted by the Court. You would have the opportunity to lodge arguments against the application and they would have to be considered by the Judge. Of course there is also the question of proportionality - i.e. would the Court see fit to grant an Order for Sale when the debt is relatively small? There are a lot of circumstances to take into account in each individual case. However, I would stress that the first step is to try to avoid a CO being made in the first place - and the way to go about this would depend on whether or not the process has already begun...

Ganymede put it in a nutshell about the ability to object. Anyone who has a registered interest in the property can object if they want to, and they ALL have to be served with copies of the application and Land Registry documents in order to make them aware of the application, therefore they all have the opportunity to object. I have processed numerous CO applications, for sole and joint owners, with a roughly equal success rate (success from the creditor's point of view).

It's at the Court's discretion whether or not to grant an Order for Sale. There would be another hearing and you would have the chance to put your case forward. The best thing you can do at this stage is to concentrate on trying to avoid a Final Charging Order..... Go to my new thread on the Legal Issues section if you'd like answers to any specific questions on the Charging Order process as opposed to the debt itself

Thanks for the welcome, Andy No, I've been out of the feld of litigation since the end of last year, but prior to that gained an awful lot of practical experience (whilst working through Legal Exec studies) in a variety of issues including County Court claims and various methods of enforcement on behalf of clients. I still like to keep my hand in, though ;-) Dahlia