You Won — Now Get Paid: Charging Orders and Third Party Debt Orders

Winning is the easy part. The court that gave you judgment will not knock on the debtor's door, empty their bank account, or sell their flat for you. Enforcement is a second job, and it runs on its own rules, forms and fees. In England and Wales an application for a charging order or a third party debt order each costs £135, and the order you choose determines whether you walk away with cash this month or hold a paper security that pays out years later, if at all.

The two mistakes that sink most judgment creditors are chasing the wrong asset and moving too slowly. Aim a third party debt order at an account the debtor has already drained and you have spent your fee on nothing. Sit on a judgment while another creditor registers a charge first, and you drop down the queue. The discipline is the same everywhere: find the assets, then pick the right weapon, in the right order.

This guide maps the post-judgment enforcement toolkit in two common law jurisdictions — England & Wales and Hong Kong — covering charging orders (which secure the debt against land or securities), third party debt and garnishee orders (which capture money a third party owes your debtor), and the supporting tools: execution against goods, attachment of earnings, and the all-important examination of the debtor to find out what they actually own.

The post-judgment toolkit: four weapons and a torch

Across both jurisdictions the enforcement options sort into a handful of categories, each suited to a different kind of asset:

A charge over land or securities — a charging order. It does not produce cash by itself; it makes you a secured creditor and lets you apply later for a sale.
A capture of money held by a third party — a third party debt order (England & Wales) or garnishee order (Hong Kong). Typically aimed at a bank that owes the debtor the balance in their account.
Seizure and sale of goods — a writ of control (England & Wales) or writ of fieri facias (Hong Kong), executed by an enforcement officer or bailiff.
A bite out of wages — an attachment of earnings order, paid over by the debtor's employer.

The torch that should come before any of these is an examination of the debtor: a court-compelled interrogation about their income, bank accounts, property and other assets. The judgment debt you are enforcing will usually include the costs the court ordered the loser to pay, so confirm the full figure before you start. If your judgment was obtained in another country, you must have it recognised locally before any of this machinery is available — see our guide to enforcing foreign judgments.

England & Wales

Enforcement in England and Wales is governed largely by the Civil Procedure Rules. Charging orders sit in CPR Part 73 (read with the Charging Orders Act 1979), third party debt orders in CPR Part 72, orders to obtain information in CPR Part 71, and attachment of earnings in CPR Part 89. England has modernised its vocabulary: the old two-stage "nisi" and "absolute" labels are gone, replaced by "interim" and "final", and the historic "garnishee order" became the third party debt order when CPR Part 72 came into force on 25 March 2002.

Find the assets first: orders to obtain information (CPR Part 71)

CPR Part 71 is headed "Orders to Obtain Information from Judgment Debtors". You apply on Form N316 for an individual or Form N316A for a company officer, the fee is £67, and the debtor is ordered to attend court to be questioned under oath and to produce documents such as bank statements and pay slips. Failure to attend can lead to committal. This is how you learn which bank holds the account worth garnishing and whether the debtor owns land worth charging — do it before you spend money aiming at assets you only assume exist.

Charging orders: securing the debt against land (CPR Part 73)

A charging order turns your judgment into a secured interest over the debtor's property — most commonly their home or other land, but also stocks and certain securities. Section 1 of the Charging Orders Act 1979 empowers the court to impose a charge over the debtor's property to secure payment of the sum due under the judgment, with supplementary provisions in section 3.

CPR Part 73 is headed "Charging Orders, Stop Orders and Stop Notices". The charge it creates is security, not payment. To turn that security into actual money you must apply separately for an order for sale.

The process runs in two stages, plus an optional third:

Interim charging order. Made by the court on your application without notice to the debtor (the relevant rule is CPR 73.4 where the matter is dealt with by the Civil National Business Centre, or CPR 73.6 at other venues). The interim order can be registered against the property at once, which is what fixes your place in the queue.
Final charging order. At a further-consideration hearing under CPR 73.10 (and 73.10A) the court decides whether to make the order final, having heard any objection from the debtor or other creditors.
Order for sale. A charge alone does not get you paid. Enforcing it by sale is a separate Part 8 claim under CPR 73.10C ("Enforcement of charging order by sale"), where the court weighs the competing interests — including, where it is the debtor's home, the position of family members.

The fee for applying for a charging order is £135 per charging order applied for. A charging order is a patient creditor's tool: it is excellent at securing your position against a debtor who owns property but has no spare cash today, and it can sit on the title until the property is sold or remortgaged.

Third party debt orders: capturing money in a bank account (CPR Part 72)

Where a charging order is patient, a third party debt order is immediate. CPR Part 72 lets you seize money that a third party — usually the debtor's bank — owes the debtor. Like the charging order it runs in two stages:

Interim third party debt order. Made without notice under CPR 72.4. Crucially, it freezes the targeted debt (for example, the balance in the account) from the moment it is served on the bank. This is why surprise matters: a debtor who learns the application is coming will move the money first.
Final third party debt order. At the further-consideration hearing under CPR 72.8 the court decides whether to make the order final and require the third party to pay the captured sum to you directly.

The fee is £135 per party against whom the order is requested. Note the built-in safety valve for the debtor: CPR 72.7, headed "Arrangements for debtors in hardship", lets an individual debtor apply for a hardship payment order permitting the bank to release money to meet essential living expenses while the account is otherwise frozen.

A third party debt order is not a freezing injunction and should not be confused with one; it captures a specific debt for enforcement of an existing judgment, whereas a freezing order is a pre-emptive measure to stop dissipation of assets before judgment.

The blunter instruments: writ of control and attachment of earnings

Two further tools round out the English toolkit. The writ of control — the current name for the former writ of fieri facias since 6 April 2014 under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 — directs an enforcement officer to take control of and sell the debtor's goods. It works against tangible assets but rarely yields much against a debtor whose only valuable property is mortgaged land or whose goods are on hire purchase.

Where the debtor is employed, an attachment of earnings order under the Attachment of Earnings Act 1971 (procedure now in CPR Part 89) directs the employer to deduct a fixed sum from wages and pay it to the court. It is slow but steady, and well suited to a debtor with a stable job and little else.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong's enforcement machinery is structurally similar but uses older language, and it is worth being precise about the differences. The rules live in the Rules of the High Court (Cap. 4A). Hong Kong has not followed England's renaming: it still speaks of "garnishee orders", "charging orders" and the "writ of fieri facias", and it still uses the two-stage order nisi (made first, without notice) followed by order absolute (confirmed after the other side is heard), rather than "interim" and "final". Do not assume the English labels apply.

Find the assets first: examination of the judgment debtor (RHC Order 48)

As in England, start with information. Hong Kong has no equivalent of CPR Part 71. Instead, RHC Order 48 provides for examination of the judgment debtor — and of the officers of a corporate debtor — to disclose their assets. For an individual judgment debtor, examination before a court officer is also available under RHC Order 49B. The purpose is identical: compel disclosure of bank accounts, property and income so you can target the right enforcement order rather than guess.

Charging orders: order nisi then order absolute (RHC Order 50)

RHC Order 50 ("Charging Orders, Stop Orders, etc.") empowers the court to impose a charge on the debtor's property to secure the judgment debt; Order 50 rule 1 allows the court to charge any property of the debtor. The structure mirrors England's but with the older names:

Charging order nisi. Granted on an ex parte (without notice) application, securing the debt against the identified property.
Charging order absolute. Confirmed at an inter partes hearing once the debtor has had the chance to be heard.
Order for sale. Exactly as in England, the charge is security only. To realise it, the creditor must make a further, separate application for an order for the sale of the charged property under RHC Order 50.

The take-away is the same on both sides of the world: a charging order makes you a secured creditor, but cash comes only from a later sale application that the court will scrutinise on its own merits.

Garnishee orders: capturing a debt owed to your debtor (RHC Order 49)

Hong Kong's analogue of the English third party debt order is the garnishee order under RHC Order 49 ("Garnishee Proceedings"). It attaches a debt owed to the judgment debtor by a third party — classically a bank account balance — and directs that third party (the garnishee) to pay it to the judgment creditor. The two stages are, again, order nisi (granted ex parte, which freezes the targeted debt on service) and order absolute (made after the garnishee and the debtor can be heard). The tactical logic is identical to England's: speed and surprise determine whether there is anything left in the account to catch.

Execution against goods: the writ of fieri facias (RHC Order 47)

Execution against the debtor's goods proceeds under RHC Order 47 by way of a writ of fieri facias (fi fa) — the original term that England retired in 2014 but Hong Kong keeps. The bailiff seizes and sells the debtor's goods to satisfy the judgment; the statutory basis includes section 21D of the High Court Ordinance (Cap. 4). A Hong Kong court fee applies to these applications under the High Court Fees Rules; check the current figure before you file, as fee schedules are revised periodically.

Priority and timing: why sequence matters

Enforcement is partly a race. With charging orders, the order in which competing charges are registered against a property generally governs who is paid first out of the proceeds of sale, so registering an interim or nisi charge promptly protects your position against later creditors. With third party debt and garnishee orders, the freeze takes effect when the interim order or order nisi is served on the bank — capture the balance before the debtor moves it and you are paid; arrive a day late and there is nothing to attach.

Two timing points are easy to miss. First, before pouring money into enforcement, make sure the judgment is secure: a debtor who was never properly served may apply to set aside a default judgment, which would pull the rug from under any enforcement built on it. Second, enforcement is not the only pressure point — for a clearly undisputed debt above the threshold, an insolvency route such as a statutory demand can be a faster lever, though it is a blunt and serious one that should not be used where the debt is genuinely disputed.

Choosing the right weapon: a practical sequence

For most judgment creditors, the efficient order of play is:

Confirm the judgment and the full sum due, including interest and costs, and check that no application to set it aside is on foot.
Examine the debtor (CPR Part 71 in England; RHC Order 48 or 49B in Hong Kong) to find out what they own and where they bank. This single step prevents most wasted fees.
Match the weapon to the asset. Cash in a bank account → third party debt order or garnishee. Equity in land → charging order, then an order for sale if the debtor still will not pay. A salary → attachment of earnings. Valuable goods → writ of control or fi fa.
Move quickly and, where surprise matters, without notice, so the targeted asset is still there when your order bites.

Used in that order, the toolkit is powerful. Used at random, it is an expensive way to learn that the debtor's account was empty all along.

Working out which order to use, on which asset, in which court, is exactly the kind of question where a quick sanity-check pays for itself. Ask CommonBench's Legal Chat to talk through the enforcement options for your judgment, the forms and fees involved, and the sequence that fits your debtor's assets — before you spend a penny on the wrong application.

This guide covers general principles of post-judgment enforcement in England & Wales and Hong Kong and is not legal advice. Procedure, fees and authority differ between courts and change over time. Check the current rules for your specific court before applying for any enforcement order.