CCJ (County Court Judgment)

CCJs are public-record judgments registered on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines for England and Wales (Northern Ireland and Scotland have separate equivalents). They appear on both business and director credit files and are visible to anyone running a credit check. A CCJ against the company itself is a more serious signal to underwriters than a CCJ against a director personally, but both matter.

There is a meaningful difference between a satisfied CCJ — one that has been paid in full and marked satisfied on the register — and an unsatisfied CCJ. Satisfied CCJs still show on the file for six years but are weighted much less heavily by lenders. Unsatisfied CCJs are typically a hard decline for unsecured business loans, and lead to repricing or additional security requests on asset finance and invoice finance.

If a CCJ has been issued in error or paid within one calendar month, it can be set aside or removed entirely by applying to the court. UK SME owners preparing to apply for finance should pull their company file from Experian or Creditsafe a few months in advance, identify any CCJs, and either satisfy and mark them or apply to set them aside before a lender sees them.