Setting aside a default judgment

A default judgment is one entered without a hearing because the defendant did not file an acknowledgement of service within 14 days, or a defence within 28 days, of being served. Under Part 12 of the Civil Procedure Rules the court can enter judgment automatically on the claimant's request — there is no judicial scrutiny of the merits.

You were not properly served

If the claim form was sent to an old address, a wrong address, or a business you no longer occupy, the court never had effective notice on you. CPR 6 sets out how a claim must be served, and a defendant who never received it has a strong basis to set aside.

You filed your defence in time but it was missed

Online portals and post can fail. If you posted an acknowledgement or filed a defence within the 14- or 28-day window and the court did not record it, produce the proof of posting or the email receipt — judgment should be set aside as of right.

There is a real prospect of successfully defending the claim

Under CPR 13.3 the court has discretion to set aside if you can show a defence with real merit — not fanciful, but a properly arguable case. You will need a draft defence and a witness statement explaining what happened and why you have a defence on the substance.

Some other good reason

Hospitalisation, bereavement, a sudden disability, or other genuine emergency that prevented you from responding can amount to a good reason. The court considers the seriousness of the breach, the reason for it, and all the circumstances under the Denton test.

Setting aside a default judgment

When does set-aside apply?

Set-aside is the route by which a defendant who genuinely never had a chance to respond, or who has a real defence on the merits, asks the court to undo that automatic judgment. It is governed by CPR 13. There are two grounds: a mandatory ground in CPR 13.2 (where judgment was wrongly entered — for example before the response time had run, or after acknowledgement was filed) and a discretionary ground in CPR 13.3 (where the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim, or there is some other good reason).

Under CPR 13.3(2), in deciding whether to grant the discretionary application the court must take into account whether the application was made promptly. This is the single most important factor. The Court of Appeal in Standard Bank Plc v Agrinvest International Inc reminded litigants that "promptly" means "with all reasonable celerity in the circumstances" — not weeks of dithering once you knew judgment had been entered.

Where you are seeking relief from sanctions — and most set-aside applications are treated as such — the court applies the three-stage Denton v TH White test: was the breach serious or significant; was there a good reason for it; and is it just to grant relief in all the circumstances? Bringing the application within days of discovering the judgment, with a clean explanation and a draft defence, is the surest way through.

The four common grounds

If the judgment was entered for failure to be served properly under CPR 13.2, the court has no discretion — it must set aside. The court fee is the same.

The credit-file timing rule

Section 98 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 created the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines, run by Registry Trust Ltd. Every CCJ is registered automatically and credit reference agencies pull from this register. The entry stays visible for six years.

There is one critical exception. If the judgment is set aside within one calendar month of it being entered, the entry is removed entirely. After that one-month window, set-aside marks the entry as "set aside" on the register — but the entry itself remains visible to lenders for the full six-year term. The practical lesson is to act fast: a successful set-aside application made on day 28 erases the CCJ, while the same application granted on day 35 leaves a permanent footprint.

If you have been served with a notice of judgment, do not wait to "see what happens". Get the application to court the same week.

Bringing your own claim?

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