What is an attachment of earnings order?

Which kind of order you have matters more than anything else, because it decides how much can be taken and who you talk to about changing it. A county court order is set by the court using your budget. Council tax and DWP deductions use fixed percentage tables. This guide covers England and Wales. In Scotland, the equivalent is an earnings arrestment, covered briefly below.

How does a county court attachment of earnings order work?

It is one of the ways a creditor can enforce a county court judgment if you have not paid as ordered.

1. The creditor applies on form N337. The court fee is £139. An order can only be made against someone who is employed, and the debt must be at least £50.
2. The court sends you a notice and a reply form (form N56). You must return the reply form within 8 days, setting out your pay, your household spending and your other debts. Fill it in fully: it is what the court uses to decide how much you can afford.
3. The court makes the order. It sets two figures: the normal deduction rate, which is what should be taken each payday, and the protected earnings rate, the amount below which your pay should not be reduced.
4. You or the creditor can ask the court to reconsider within 14 days of the order being served, giving reasons.
5. Your employer makes the deductions and sends them to the Centralised Attachment of Earnings Payment System (CAPS), which pays the creditor. The employer can also take £1 each time towards its costs.

You can also ask the court for a suspended order. That means the order is made but not sent to your employer, as long as you pay the creditor the set amount yourself. If you miss payments, the creditor can ask for the order to be sent to your employer. This keeps the arrangement between you and the court.

What does your employer do, and what must you do?

Your employer receives the order and must follow it. It has to tell the court within 10 days if you do not work there, or if you leave. Your employer will know that a court has ordered deductions for a debt, but it does not decide anything about the amount.

You have duties too. You must tell the court within 7 days if you leave a job or start a new one, with details of your new pay. A new employer who knows about the order must also tell the court within 7 days. The order does not end just because you change jobs.

Can you change or stop a county court order?

• If it is too high, ask the court to reconsider within the first 14 days. After that, you can apply to the court to vary the order if your circumstances change, for example if your pay falls or your rent goes up.
• If you have several judgments, you can ask the court for a consolidated order, which replaces separate orders with one and shares the payments between the creditors.
• If you pay the debt in full, the order ends.
• If you enter a formal debt solution, creditors included in it generally cannot continue enforcement. Once an IVA is approved, a creditor bound by it cannot carry on enforcing a debt included in it, so tell your supervisor straight away if deductions continue. See can you get an IVA if you have a CCJ?. A debt relief order or bankruptcy also stops most enforcement for the debts they cover.

How do council tax attachment of earnings orders work?

Once a council has a council tax liability order, it can send an attachment of earnings order to your employer itself, with no court hearing. It can have up to two running against you at the same time. Your employer can take £1 each time towards its costs, and must tell the council within 14 days if you leave.

The amount is not based on your budget. It is a fixed percentage of your net pay, and the table is different in England and Wales:

Source: Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, Schedule 4. There are separate weekly and daily tables for people paid weekly or daily.

For example, someone in England taking home £1,600 a month would have 17% taken, which is £272 a month. The English bands have not changed since 2007, so even modest pay can fall into the higher percentages. If yours is unaffordable, contact the council straight away, explain your budget and ask it to agree a lower payment arrangement instead. In Wales, Welsh Government guidance says councils should not use dual attachments for residents identified as vulnerable.

What is a DWP Direct Earnings Attachment?

The DWP can take money from your wages to recover benefit overpayments and some other debts, without going to court. It uses its own table:

Source: Social Security (Overpayments and Recovery) Regulations 2013, Schedule 2. The higher rate is for cases where the person has been convicted of an offence connected with the overpayment. Your employer can take an extra £1 each time. If the deductions are causing hardship, contact DWP Debt Management to discuss it: see what DWP Debt Management is.

Unpaid magistrates’ court fines can also be taken from wages: a fines officer can make an attachment of earnings order without a court hearing.

What about Scotland?

Scotland uses earnings arrestment instead. A sheriff officer must first serve a charge for payment giving you 14 days to pay. After that, your employer deducts an amount set by statutory tables, and nothing is taken if your net pay is £750 a month or less. See what sheriff officers can do in Scotland for how arrestments work and how to stop them.

What to do next

1. Check which kind of order you have: the paperwork will come from a court, a council or the DWP.
2. If you have just received a county court reply form, return it within 8 days with full, honest figures.
3. If the deductions are more than you can manage, contact whoever made the order straight away and ask for a lower amount or a payment arrangement.
4. Get free, impartial advice from MoneyHelper, StepChange, Citizens Advice or National Debtline, especially if you have other debts. See where to get free debt advice. The debt solutions comparison sets out options for dealing with several debts, and our debt problems hub covers other court letters.