I wonder what you have to do have the judgement enforced. Any idea?
If you have a judgement, then the defendant has a set period of time in which to pay. If they don't, then you can go to court again and ask for permission to enforce the judgement.
There's a description of your options in this newspaper article:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/nov/20/small-claims-court-enforce-judgmentThe next step is to apply to court asking for a warrant of execution instructing bailiffs to visit the business address and seize goods. In practice, this rarely is useful, and if the office is empty, then it is difficult to see how it will do anything.
The only viable alternative options that I can see are:
- to apply for a 3rd party debt order through the court - if granted, the court will issue a warrant to freeze the debtor's account. This will only work if there is money in the account; money coming into the account after the order is given is immune. Note that you need to know which bank the account is with; and you can only freeze the company account, not the director's personal accounts.
- bankruptcy - you can ask the court to close down the company and seize all assets. The minimum debt is £750 and there are big fees (nearly £1000) to apply. This is the "nuclear" option. However, it will only work if the company has assets in the UK. However, this option does bring with it significant penalties against the company directors - they will be disqualified from acting as a company director, have their personal credit trashed, and if they are accounts, they will usually have their chartered status or certification revoked. If the liquidator (official receiver) discovers or suspects fraud, attempts to offshore assets, or trading while insolvent while tracing and selling assets, then he can apply even more penalties to the directors in person. Note that if you request for bankruptcy you do NOT get priority over other debts. You get pooled with every other creditor for access to the company's carcass when the assets are divided up.
A charging order won't be useful, as you can only use it against company owned real estate, and you can be pretty confident that the shop is leased. Similarly an attachment of earnings order won't be useful, as you can't go against the director in person, only the company.