When you win and still do not get paid

There is a blunt fact to understand first.

The Employment Tribunal does not recover the judgment sum for you.

Its role ends at deciding what is payable and ordering it. It has no power to collect if the other side does not pay.

And an Employment Tribunal judgment cannot be enforced as it stands.

To recover, you have to transfer the judgment into a court enforcement process. In England and Wales the main options are:

Separately, there is also a free statutory scheme.

The Employment Tribunal penalty enforcement and naming scheme. 42 days after judgment you can register non-payment free of charge, and a warning notice is sent to the employer. If it is still unpaid 28 days later, a penalty of 50% of the judgment sum plus 8% annual interest can be imposed, and employers who do not pay can be named publicly on gov.uk.

If you are not in a hurry to recover, or want to avoid fronting any costs, it is worth considering this route first. The link is in "Sources and links".

I chose the High Court writ.

Three reasons:

1. The judgment sum was over £1,600
2. HCEOs work on a no-recovery, no-fee basis — broadly, if nothing is recovered, no fee arises
3. Enforcement costs are added to the debtor's side, so they do not come out of my share

The third point matters, so I set it out below.

To have a writ issued you apply to the High Court. I did it through an HCEO firm.

The breakdown on the writ was as follows (at the start of enforcement):

What to notice here is the structure.

Both the £80 issue cost and the HCEO's fees are added on top of the total demanded from the debtor.

So if recovery succeeds, what I receive is the "claimant's total" — the judgment sum plus interest — and the enforcement costs fall on the other side.

My actual outlay was advancing the £80 writ issue cost, and nothing more.

Note that HCEO fees increase as enforcement progresses. At a later stage they had risen to £1,243.75, taking the total on the writ to £5,413.32.

From the debtor's point of view, the longer they drag it out, the more they owe. That works in your favour in negotiation.

Once the writ is issued, an HCEO enforcement agent attends the debtor's premises.

Looking back over the whole history, the contrast was stark.

• Documents from the tribunal → no response
• Payment deadline → no payment
• Enforcement agent attends → a response the same day

After the visit, things moved fast. £1,000 was recovered at the visit, and a proposal for payment followed.

Correspondence from the enforcement agent included wording like this:

Our enforcement agent has attended your premises but this matter remains unresolved and a balance is outstanding. To avoid further visits and further fees, please contact the case handler urgently.

Where months of correspondence had produced nothing, attending in person produced a result the same day.

That said, it was not all smooth from there.

As enforcement progressed, the respondent objected.

In substance:

Our solicitors have already filed an application with the court to set aside the decision that gave rise to this debt.

Neither I nor the company received notice of the hearing, and we were unable to defend. The judgment was given in our absence in the claimant's favour, and had we been able to attend the outcome would very likely have been different.

Please halt collection until a new hearing date is set.

The HCEO's answer was unambiguous.

We are unable to place enforcement on hold unless we receive an order from the court or instructions from our client.

This is a very important practical point.

Saying you have made an application to set aside does not stop enforcement. To stop it, the court has to actually make an order staying enforcement.

"I've filed an application, so please wait" has no legal effect.

If you meet the same situation, this is the point to hold onto: what stops enforcement is a court order, not the other side's assertion.

And there is a further layer here.

I cannot confirm that the respondent actually made the application at all.

• I have not received a copy of any application
• The HCEO handling enforcement has not received a copy either
• The court has sent me no notice of anything

So what is established at this point is only the fact that the respondent says so.

That is precisely why enforcement did not stop. If a court makes an order, that order reaches the HCEO. Nothing having reached them means that, at the very least, no decision to stay enforcement has been made.

Keep the other side's assertions separate from facts you can verify. In this situation, that was the thing that actually mattered.

There is a sequel to this.

The respondent did make formal applications to the court to stay enforcement, on form N244 (application notice). From the records I have, these came in two parts.

The second application set out circumstances I had not been able to see from my side.

The bailiff attended the defendant's premises and threatened to remove property. Mr Mossman, on behalf of the defendant, offered a payment plan under protest to avoid the bailiff taking possession of any property. £1,000 was paid that day, with a further £1,000 due every fortnight. The defendant seeks to recover any payment made under the payment plan should the judgment be set aside.

In other words, the "£1,000 recovered" and the "£1,000 fortnightly instalment agreement" described above were, from the respondent's side, a qualified payment made to stop the agent's visit. The same events sit differently in each party's record.

Then, some ten days after that second application, District Judge Keating at the Croydon District Registry dismissed it. (The sealed order followed a few days later.)

The reasons on the order read as follows.

According to the evidence of the Defendant's director, the Defendant knew of the Employment Tribunal Judgment shortly after it was given.

By the time of his statement some two months later there is no evidence that Defendant had actually made an application to the Employment Tribunal to set aside, vary or appeal the Employment Tribunal Judgment.

Accordingly, the application is dismissed.

In the previous section I wrote that what was established was only the fact that the respondent said so. The court reached the same conclusion.

The respondent had maintained throughout that a set-aside application was on foot. The court's finding was that no evidence that such an application existed was ever produced.

What this shows is practically significant.

• An assertion that an application has been made does not, by itself, stop enforcement. It did not work on the HCEO, and it did not work on the court either
• A party seeking a stay has to show with evidence that the application actually exists
• The more time has passed since you learned of the judgment, the harder it gets to explain why you did nothing until now

Note that the order was made without a hearing, using the court's case management powers under Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules. That leaves the respondent able to apply to set aside or vary the order under Part 23.10 within 7 days of service.

As things stand, no order stopping enforcement has been made. Enforcement continues.

One more mechanism that is confusing if you do not know about it.

Money recovered by an enforcement agent does not go straight to the claimant.

The HCEO holds recovered funds for 14 days. This is the statutory embargo period.

Only after that does payment go out to the claimant.

Processing the payment itself can also take a few days. In practice there were points where the balance shown and the amount actually received looked inconsistent.

Recovered ≠ in your account.

Worth knowing in advance so you do not misjudge the timing.

As enforcement continued, the respondent proposed a payment arrangement.

£1,000 every two weeks.

As set out in the section above, the respondent later told the court that these payments were made under protest and that they would seek their return if the judgment were set aside. I did not know that was how they characterised it when I agreed. If you are considering instalments, how the other side is characterising the payments is worth establishing.

I agreed, and told the HCEO so.

I agree to the debtor's proposal of £1,000 every two weeks.

Please notify me when payments are received, and notify me immediately if the debtor defaults.

The position at the point of agreement:

Interest keeps accruing at £0.74 a day — 8% a year, applied daily. Before the final payment you need to confirm the exact balance with the HCEO.

Before agreeing to instalments, I checked the following:

• What happens on default. If payments are missed, the agent can re-attend without prior notice and further fees can arise
• Whether I would be told promptly on default. Do not leave monitoring entirely to the HCEO — ask to be told
• That interest does not stop. Agreeing to instalments does not stop interest accruing on the balance

Whether to accept instalments is a judgement call. You can hold out for the lump sum and press on with enforcement. But where the other side lacks the means, it can be better to decide on the basis of what is realistically recoverable.

To summarise this chapter:

• A judgment does not pay itself. The tribunal will not collect
• An ET judgment is not directly enforceable. It has to be transferred into a court enforcement process
• Over £1,600, a High Court writ is a realistic option. Enforcement costs are added to the debtor
• Your own outlay may be no more than advancing the writ issue cost
• An agent attending in person produces results far faster than paperwork
• An assertion that a set-aside application has been made does not stop enforcement. Stopping it requires a court order
• Treat the other side's assertions as assertions until they are verified. With no copy of the application and no notice from the court, all that is established is that it was said
• The court took the same view. The application to stay enforcement was dismissed, there being no evidence that any set-aside application had actually been made
• Recovered money is held for 14 days before being paid out
• Interest keeps accruing daily. The passage of time is not against you

And the most important thing.

Do not assume it is over once you have the judgment.

Realistically, start preparing for the next stage the moment the payment deadline passes. Check the respondent's registered status in parallel — still active, or entering liquidation.

A judgment means your right has been established. Turning it into cash is another job.