The right to be paid does not change at the border. The court, the enforcement and the fees do.
A debtor registered in Northern Ireland changes the court, the fees and the enforcement route that follow a letter before action. The underlying right to be paid is the same UK-wide law as in England, Wales or Scotland. The Small Claims Court, the County Court and the Enforcement of Judgments Office are specific to Northern Ireland.
The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 is a UK statute, and it applies in Northern Ireland exactly as it does in England, Wales and Scotland. A business owed money by another business can add statutory interest at 8% over the Bank of England base rate — 11.75% for debts that fell due in 1 July to 31 December 2026 — plus fixed compensation on top. Working that out is the same exercise wherever the debtor is based; see late payment interest and compensation for the calculation.
Northern Ireland does not run a separate small claims tribunal. Claims up to £5,000 are heard in the Small Claims Court, which sits within the County Court, under a procedure built for a party bringing the claim without a solicitor. The limit rose from £3,000 to £5,000 on 3 October 2022, under the County Courts (Financial Limits) Order (Northern Ireland) 2022.
Above £5,000, a claim goes through the County Court's ordinary civil bill procedure instead, with heavier paperwork and a stronger case for instructing a solicitor admitted in Northern Ireland. The County Court's general civil jurisdiction runs up to £30,000, under the County Courts (Financial Limits) Order (Northern Ireland) 2013 — above that figure, a claim belongs in the High Court.
The claim fee is banded by value: £47 up to £300, £77 from £300.01 to £500, £108 from £500.01 to £1,000, and a flat £155 above £1,000 — the scale in force from 1 October 2024. The fee is normally recoverable from the debtor if the claim succeeds.
Illustrative. The application fee sits outside the total above because it is only spent if the debtor does not pay once asked — but it too is normally recoverable if a claim becomes necessary.
Winning in the Small Claims Court or the County Court gets a judgment, which states what is owed but does not collect it. Northern Ireland does not use bailiffs or High Court Enforcement Officers. Every civil judgment is enforced centrally, through a single body: the Enforcement of Judgments Office in Belfast.
The first step is a Notice of Intent to Enforce, served on the debtor for a fee of £31 per debtor, under the Judgments Enforcement (Northern Ireland) Order 1981. The debtor then has 10 days from service to pay or to make a suitable arrangement directly with the creditor. Only once that period has passed without payment can an application to enforce be lodged — and it has to be lodged within 3 months of the Notice of Intent, or the notice has to be served again before anything further can happen.
Illustrative, using the Enforcement of Judgments Office's banded scale, in force from 1 October 2024. A debt that falls between two bands is rounded up to the higher one. Judgment debt also carries its own interest, fixed by rule of court at a flat 8% a year — a separate figure from the statutory commercial interest already claimed on the original invoice, and not linked to the Bank of England base rate at all. It is not chargeable where the judgment is for 200 or less.
Once an application is accepted, the Office can use an attachment of earnings order, taking a set amount direct from a debtor's wages; an instalment order, fixing a regular payment where the debtor has no single sum available; a garnishee order, recovering money a third party — typically a bank — holds for the debtor; a land charging order, securing the debt against property the debtor owns; or a seizure order, letting an enforcement officer list and sell goods. Which route applies depends on what is actually known about the debtor's income and assets, and the Office can compel the debtor to disclose both at a means inquiry if that is not already clear.
Northern Ireland has its own statute, the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, and the period it sets for an ordinary contract debt is 6 years from when the debt fell due — the same length as the Limitation Act 1980 south and east of it, and a year longer than Scotland, where negative prescription cuts the clock to five. A written acknowledgement of the debt, or a part payment, restarts the Northern Irish clock in the same way it does in England, so correspondence is always worth checking before concluding a debt is out of time.
Buzz Legal's solicitors, AD Solicitors (SRA no. 8011228), are regulated in England and Wales. Issuing or conducting proceedings in a Northern Irish court is reserved to a solicitor admitted there, whatever size the claim.
What is not reserved is the groundwork, and a genuine amount of the Enforcement of Judgments Office process sits on that side of the line: the Notice of Intent and the application to enforce are both designed to be completed and signed by the creditor directly, with no solicitor named anywhere on either form. Buzz has people based in Northern Ireland, which is a practical advantage most recovery firms working the rest of the UK cannot offer on this groundwork — checking whether the debtor can actually pay (see checking a customer), working out the interest and compensation, sending a clear letter that states the debt and a deadline (see writing a letter before action), and handling the EJO paperwork once a judgment exists. Tell us the debtor is in Northern Ireland before you instruct anyone, and that shapes who takes the claim itself if it comes to that.
Yes. The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 is a UK-wide statute, so the same 8% margin over the Bank of England base rate, the same fixed compensation bands, and the same right to reasonable recovery costs above them apply to a debtor in Northern Ireland exactly as they do to one in England, Wales or Scotland. The current statutory rate is 11.75% for debts falling due in 1 July to 31 December 2026. The court process and the enforcement route are what change, under separate Northern Irish law.
The Small Claims Court is part of the County Court in Northern Ireland, handling claims for money up to £5,000 since 3 October 2022, when the limit rose from £3,000. It is designed to be usable without a solicitor, with simplified forms and a hearing process built around a litigant presenting their own case, and for a plain, undisputed trade invoice within that value it is normally the right route. Above that value, the case moves to the County Court's ordinary civil bill procedure, with heavier pleadings and a correspondingly stronger case for instructing a solicitor, and above £30,000 it belongs in the High Court instead.
The fee is banded by value: £47 up to £300, £77 from £300.01 to £500, £108 from £500.01 to £1,000, and a flat £155 above that regardless of how much higher the claim goes, under the scale in force from 1 October 2024. The fee is normally recoverable from the debtor as part of the claim if it succeeds, so the cost sits with whoever is actually in the wrong, provided the claim is properly brought and the debtor does not successfully dispute it. If it later has to go to the Enforcement of Judgments Office because the debtor still does not pay, that stage carries its own separate fees on top of the claim fee.
It is the single body that enforces money judgments across Northern Ireland, in place of the bailiffs and High Court Enforcement Officers used in England and Wales. A creditor first serves a Notice of Intent to Enforce, giving the debtor 10 days to pay or reach an arrangement directly. If that period passes unpaid, the creditor applies to the Office to enforce the judgment, and it then has powers to investigate the debtor's means and use tools such as an attachment of earnings order, a garnishee order against a bank account, or an instalment order. Both stages are designed to be completed by the creditor directly, without a solicitor.
The most common are an attachment of earnings order, taking a set amount direct from wages; a garnishee order, recovering money a bank or other third party holds for the debtor; and an instalment order, fixing a regular payment where no lump sum is available. A land charging order secures the debt against property the debtor owns, and a seizure order lets an enforcement officer list and sell goods. Which is used depends on what is actually known about the debtor's income and assets, and the Office can compel disclosure of both at a means inquiry.
No. AD Solicitors (SRA no. 8011228) are regulated in England and Wales, and issuing or conducting proceedings in a Northern Irish court is reserved to a solicitor admitted there, regardless of the size of the claim. We can still do the groundwork that decides most of a claim's value: checking whether the debtor can pay, calculating the interest and compensation correctly, sending the demand that states the debt plainly with a deadline, and — because Buzz has people based in Northern Ireland — handling the Enforcement of Judgments Office paperwork once a judgment exists, since neither EJO form requires a solicitor's name.
Yes. Northern Ireland has its own statute, the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, and article 4 of it sets the same 6 years for an ordinary contract debt from the date it fell due that the Limitation Act 1980 sets in England and Wales. That is a year longer than Scotland's five-year negative prescription period. A written acknowledgement of the debt, or a part payment, restarts the clock in Northern Ireland in the same way it does in England, so correspondence is always worth checking before concluding a debt is out of time.
It moves out of the Small Claims Court and into the County Court's ordinary civil bill procedure, which involves more formal written pleadings and a correspondingly stronger case for instructing a solicitor admitted in Northern Ireland from the outset. The £5,000 figure applies to the value of the claim itself, so an invoice with an undisputed balance under that figure can still use the Small Claims Court if the amount genuinely being claimed is within it — worth checking before assuming the whole invoice pushes you into the heavier procedure, which in turn applies up to the County Court's general limit of £30,000 before a claim belongs in the High Court.
The letter-before-action checklist, the interest and compensation rules, and the escalation ladder with what each step costs. One email, no sequence.
Tell us what you are owed and who owes it. We come back with what the debt is worth once interest and compensation are added, what we would do first, and the fixed fee for doing it.
