How to Set Aside a Default Judgment With Form N244

The envelope has a plastic window and your name spelled almost right, and inside is a judgment you never turned up to argue. To ask the court to set that default judgment aside you file one form — the N244 application notice — and, for a standard on-notice application, pay a court fee of £321 under the EX50 schedule in force from 13 July 2026. There is no tidy deadline printed anywhere on it. The test the rules apply is a single adverb: promptly.

That word does a lot of work. We’ll come back to it.

First, how you got here, because it is almost never drama. A claim form arrives at an old address, or under a drift of takeaway menus, or during the fortnight you were in hospital. The reply clock — fourteen days to file a defence or an acknowledgment of service — runs whether or not you ever open the envelope. Miss it, and the other side can ask for judgment in default: no hearing, no argument, a number entered against your name because the calendar said so.

The instinct is to phone someone and explain. Explaining is not a step the process recognises. The step it recognises is the application notice.

From here there are two doors.

If the judgment should never have been entered — you did file in time, say, or you’d already paid the debt before it was entered — the rules say the court must set it aside. That is the door marked *as of right*, and it is worth checking first, free, at Citizens Advice or on GOV.UK, before you spend a penny, because you may not be arguing the merits at all. You may just be pointing at a mistake.

The other door is discretion, and it is the one most people walk through. Under the rules, the court may set aside a default judgment if you have “a real prospect of successfully defending the claim,” or if “there is some other good reason” why it should be set aside or you should be allowed to defend. Read the words slowly. Not a good excuse for missing the date. A real prospect of defending the thing on its merits — the debt isn’t yours, the sum is wrong, the work was never done.

And promptly. The rules say the court must have regard to whether you applied to set aside promptly — not within a fixed number of days, but promptly. Which is exactly why the worst thing you can do with that envelope is slide it into a drawer and resolve to deal with it next month. The drawer is not neutral. The drawer is evidence.

So the N244 asks you three plain things, and dressed in their legal furniture they can intimidate: what order you want (the judgment set aside), why (a real prospect of defending, and the defence in outline), and whether you want a hearing. There is a statement of truth to sign, and a box — section 10 — where the reasons go. That box is where good intentions go to die, because people write “I would like a chance to explain” instead of the two or three facts that would actually move it. If you want the box-by-box tour, the full walk-through lives in our N244 guide.

This is the point where Chris is useful. Chris is our technology — not a person, not a hotline. You tell it what landed on the doormat, when you actually found out, and what you’d have said had you been in the room. It asks the questions the form doesn’t think to ask: the date you learned of the judgment, whether you ever filed anything, what your defence is in a single sentence. Then it turns that into the fields of the N244, in the order and the register the court reads. It will not promise you’ll win — nothing honest could. It makes sure the form says what you mean, promptly, in the place the rule is looking.

And then the thing exists. Not advice, not a phone call you have to reconstruct from memory afterwards — a completed N244 application notice, your reasons sitting in the box, the statement of truth ready for your signature, the number of that judgment no longer the only document in the world with your name on it.

Here it is, filled in, yours to check and sign.

Most people arrive for one document and come back for the next.

Where to get the form, and what it costs

The N244 is a free download from GOV.UK: Make an application to a court (application notice): Form N244. The current version is N244 (06.22). You do not need to buy it from anybody, and you do not need us in order to get it.

The fee turns on how the application is made. Under the EX50 schedule in force from 13 July 2026, an application on notice where no other fee is specified is £321, and an application by consent or without notice where no other fee is specified is £126. ‘On notice’ means the other side has been told about the application — whether or not there is a hearing. If an application made by consent or without notice is refused and the court orders it to go ahead on notice, EX50 says the balance of the fee has to be paid.

If the fee is the obstacle, Help with Fees (apply online) can reduce it, including to nothing. Three things about it are rarely said out loud, and each of them matters:

• It is an online application. The paper form is a fallback for people who cannot apply online, not the route.
• You can apply before or after you pay. GOV.UK is explicit: if you have already paid, you can apply to get the money back if you paid the fee in the last 3 months and you were eligible for help when you paid it. A great many people assume that paying closed the door. It did not.
• The reference number has a shelf life. The service warns that it must reach the court with your application within 28 days, or the application may be rejected and you will need to make a fresh Help with Fees application.

Filling in the N244, box by box

An application notice is governed by CPR Part 23, and the N244 is the form it comes on. Nine of its boxes are administration. Two decide the application.

1. Box 1 — your name. Yours, not the claimant’s. The claim number, the court name and the parties go in the header at the top of page one.
2. Box 2 — who you are in the claim. Tick Defendant.
3. Box 3 — “What order are you asking the court to make and why?” This is the first of the two boxes that decide it. Name the order you want and the ground you rely on: that the judgment be set aside, and whether you are relying on CPR 13.2 (the court must) or CPR 13.3 (the court may). Ask for what you need next, too — usually permission to file a defence within a set number of days.
4. Box 4 — a draft order. Optional, and worth doing. A short draft saves the judge writing one and shows exactly what you are asking for.
5. Box 5 — how you want it dealt with. At a hearing, without a hearing, or at a remote hearing. GOV.UK’s guidance says most applications will require a hearing, and that remote hearings are only available where at least one party is legally represented. For a set-aside, GOV.UK says you will have to go to a private hearing at the court, and that if you do not go, the application will be rejected.
6. Box 6 — how long the hearing will last, and whether the other side agrees the estimate. GOV.UK’s guidance is plain: if you do not know how long the hearing will take, do not guess; leave these boxes blank.
7. Box 7 — any fixed trial date or period. Usually blank on a default judgment, because the case never reached a trial window.
8. Box 8 — what level of judge you need. GOV.UK’s guidance asks you to complete this only if your case is being heard in the High Court or a District Registry, choosing Master, District Judge or Judge.
9. Boxes 9 and 9a — who should be served. The claimant, at the address on the claim form or the judgment, unless you know a better one.
10. Box 10 — “What information will you be relying on, in support of your application?” The second box that decides it. You can rely on an attached witness statement, on the statement of case, or on evidence written into the box itself. This carries more weight here than on most applications, because rule 13.4(3) provides that an application under rule 13.3 must be supported by evidence. An application with an empty box 10 is an application with nothing in it.
11. Box 11 — vulnerability. If you or a witness need an adjustment — an interpreter, a screen, a break, a hearing you can join remotely — this is where you ask, and asking is normal.

Then the statement of truth, and note where the form points it: “I believe that the facts stated in section 10 (and any continuation sheets) are true.” It is box 10 that you are swearing to, which is another way of saying that box 10 is the application. The form carries the standard warning that contempt proceedings may be brought against someone who makes a false statement without an honest belief in its truth; the rules on statements of truth are in CPR Part 22. Sign it yourself.

A worked example (fictional)

The names, dates, figures and claim number below are invented for illustration. They are not a real case, and no real matter is described.

The facts. Priya moved out of a rented flat in March 2026. A claim form for £2,340 — said to be the balance owed on a bathroom refit — was served at the old address in May. She heard nothing about it until 27 August, when a mortgage broker ran a credit check and found a county court judgment entered on 12 June. She had already paid the builder £900 on account in April, and the second fix was never finished. She fills in the N244 on 1 September.

Box 3 might read:

The Defendant applies for an order setting aside the default judgment entered on 12 June 2026 in claim number K1QZ4567, and for permission to file a Defence within 14 days of that order. The Defendant relies on CPR 13.3(1)(a): she has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim, because £900 of the sum claimed was paid on 4 April 2026 and the work to which the balance relates was never completed. The Defendant first learned of the judgment on 27 August 2026 and applies five days later.

Box 10 might read:

1. I lived at 14 Marlborough Court, Coventry until 3 March 2026, when my tenancy ended and I moved. I did not arrange redirection of my post.
2. On 4 April 2026 I paid the Claimant £900 by bank transfer, which is £900 of the £2,340 now claimed. My bank statement for April 2026 is exhibited.
3. The Claimant did not return to complete the second fix and the bathroom has been unusable since 11 April 2026. I exhibit two photographs taken on 20 April 2026 and a text message of 18 April 2026 in which the Claimant said he would “get back next week”.
4. I did not receive the claim form. I first learned of the judgment on 27 August 2026, when a credit check was run in connection with a mortgage application. I made this application on 1 September 2026.
5. I believe I have a real prospect of successfully defending the claim.

Notice what is not in either box. No account of how stressful it has been. No complaint about the process. No request for sympathy. Five dated facts, each of which the court can check, plus the sentence the rule is actually looking for. That is what a completed set-aside application looks like, and it is why the same story told in the wrong register fails.

Never received the claim, or it went to an old address?

If the claim form went to an address where you no longer live, the N244 is still the form. Here is what the rules say.

• Where a claim form is served. Unless another method applies, a claim against an individual is served at their “usual or last known residence” (CPR 6.9(2)). If the claimant has reason to believe you no longer live there, the claimant “must take reasonable steps to ascertain” your current address (CPR 6.9(3)), and must serve there if it finds it (6.9(4)).
• When the court must set the judgment aside. CPR 13.2 applies where judgment was wrongly entered because a condition in rule 12.3 was not met: for example, you had already filed an acknowledgment of service or a defence, the time for doing so had not run out, or the whole claim had already been paid.
• Otherwise, when the court may. Under CPR 13.3(1) the court may set aside or vary the judgment if you have a real prospect of successfully defending the claim, or there is some other good reason. It must also consider whether you applied promptly (13.3(2)).

Which of these fits is for the court to decide on the evidence. So the witness statement sets out the dates: where you were living when the claim was sent and when you moved, when and how you first learned of the judgment, and when you applied. The worked example above is built that way.

Setting aside a default judgment by consent

If the claimant agrees that the judgment should go, the application can be made by consent. CPR 40.6(3)(b)(iv) lists “the setting aside under Part 13 of a default judgment which has not been satisfied” among the orders that can be made in agreed terms. A court officer can seal such an order only where none of the parties is a litigant in person (40.6(2)(b)). Where one is, any party may apply for an order in the agreed terms (40.6(5)), and the court may deal with it without a hearing (40.6(6)). The order must be drawn up in the agreed terms, be expressed as “By Consent”, and be signed by each party’s legal representative or, for a litigant in person, by the party themselves (40.6(7)).

The fee for an application by consent where no other fee is specified is £126 under the EX50 schedule in force from 13 July 2026. Our draft order guide shows how an order is set out.

What happens to the CCJ on the register

County court judgments are recorded on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. When the court officer learns that a judgment “has been set aside or reversed”, the officer must ask the Registrar to cancel the entry (Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines Regulations 2005, reg 11(2)(b)). Our CCJ guide explains how to check the register and what paying does to the entry.

If the judgment was given at a hearing you missed

A default judgment is entered without a hearing. If there was a hearing, you did not attend and the court gave judgment against you, a different rule applies. Under CPR 39.3(3) you may apply for the judgment to be set aside; the application must be supported by evidence (39.3(4)), and the court may grant it only if you acted promptly when you found out, had a good reason for not attending, and have a reasonable prospect of success at the trial (39.3(5)).

On the small claims track, CPR 27.11 applies if you were neither present nor represented and had not given the court written notice under rule 27.9(1). The application must be made not more than 14 days after the day notice of the judgment was served on you, and the court may grant it only if you had a good reason for not attending and have a reasonable prospect of success at the hearing.

If the claim was made online

Claims issued through HMCTS’s Online Civil Money Claims service run under Practice Direction 51R. In those claims, a party acting in person who wants to make an application “may make an online application” (para 16B.1(2)(b)), and the online application is treated as the application notice under Part 23 (16B.1(4)). Applications about an appeal or about enforcement still have to be made on paper (16B.1(10)). New to the portal? Read our step-by-step walkthrough.

What you file: the application, the evidence and the order

A set-aside application is usually three documents, and each has its own guide:

• The N244 application notice, explained box by box.
• A witness statement setting out the facts, because an application under CPR 13.3 must be supported by evidence (13.4(3)). See how to write a witness statement.
• A draft order showing the judge the order you are asking for (box 4). See how to write a draft order.

When the application is served on the claimant, the supporting evidence and any draft order go with it (CPR 23.7(3)), at least 3 days before the court deals with it (23.7(1)(b)), counted as clear days (CPR 2.8). Asking for the judgment to be set aside and asking for enforcement to be paused (a stay of execution under CPR 83.7) are separate applications; if bailiffs are already involved, see our guide to enforcement notices and stays of execution.

Which court it goes to

Rule 13.4 does the routing, and it depends on who you are. Where the claim is for a specified sum of money, the defendant is an individual, and judgment was obtained in a court that is not the defendant’s home court, the application is transferred or sent to the defendant’s home court — you do not have to travel to wherever the claimant chose to issue. Where a specified money claim was started in the County Court Money Claims Centre, has not yet been sent to a hearing centre, and the defendant is not an individual, the application is sent to the preferred hearing centre instead. After that, rule 13.4(1C) asks you to send later correspondence to the hearing centre the claim went to, not back to where it started.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Not checking CPR 13.2 first. If the judgment was wrongly entered — you filed in time, or the whole claim was already paid before it was entered — the court must set it aside, and you are not arguing the merits at all. It costs nothing to check, and Citizens Advice is free to ask.
• Explaining instead of defending. “I never got the letter” explains why you missed the date. It is not, on its own, a real prospect of successfully defending the claim.
• Leaving box 10 thin. Rule 13.4(3) requires evidence. Dates, amounts, documents.
• Waiting. The rule sets no number of days, only “promptly” (CPR 13.3(2)). Every week in the drawer is a week you may be asked about.
• Paying the judgment to make it go away. Paying deals with the debt, not the judgment. Under regulation 11 of the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines Regulations 2005, paying in full within one month of the judgment gets the register entry cancelled; paying later gets it marked as satisfied. Neither sets the judgment aside.
• Losing the Help with Fees reference. It has to reach the court with the application inside 28 days.
• Filing the application and then filing nothing else. If the judgment is set aside you will normally be given a period to file the defence you said you had — and you will need to actually file it. Our N9B defence guide covers that form; the set-aside guide takes the grounds in more depth.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a deadline for applying to set aside a default judgment?
Not a fixed number of days. Rule 13.3(2) says the matters the court must have regard to include whether the person seeking to set the judgment aside made the application promptly. Promptness is judged on your facts.

What is the difference between CPR 13.2 and CPR 13.3?
Rule 13.2 is mandatory: the court must set aside a judgment entered under Part 12 if it was wrongly entered because a condition in rule 12.3 was not satisfied, or because the whole of the claim was satisfied before judgment was entered. Rule 13.3 is discretionary: in any other case the court may set aside or vary the judgment if the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim, or if there is some other good reason.

Do I have to provide evidence?
For a rule 13.3 application, yes. Rule 13.4(3) provides that an application under rule 13.3 must be supported by evidence — a witness statement, the statement of case, or the evidence written into box 10 of the N244 and verified by the statement of truth.

What does it cost?
Under the EX50 schedule in force from 13 July 2026, an application on notice where no other fee is specified is £321, and an application by consent or without notice where no other fee is specified is £126. Help with Fees can reduce the fee, including to nothing, and can be applied for before or after you pay.

Where do I get form N244?
Free from GOV.UK, at Make an application to a court (application notice): Form N244. The current version is N244 (06.22), and there is a large-print version on the same page.

Do I need a solicitor to apply?
No. The N244 is designed to be completed by the party making the application, and the court decides a set-aside application on the rule and the evidence, not on who typed the form. Citizens Advice is free, Support Through Court can help you in person at many court buildings, and Help with Fees (apply online) can remove the fee. We will always tell you when you do not need us.

Can I set aside a CCJ if the claim went to my old address?
You can apply on Form N244. A claim against an individual is served at their usual or last known residence (CPR 6.9(2)), but a claimant who has reason to believe you have moved must take reasonable steps to find your current address (CPR 6.9(3)). Whether the court must set the judgment aside (CPR 13.2) or may do so (CPR 13.3) depends on the facts, so your evidence should give the dates: where you lived, when you moved, and when you found out.

Can a default judgment be set aside by consent?
It can, if the claimant agrees and the court makes the order. CPR 40.6(3)(b)(iv) includes setting aside an unsatisfied default judgment among the orders that can be made in agreed terms. Where a party is a litigant in person, a party applies for the order in the agreed terms (CPR 40.6(5)), the court may deal with it without a hearing (40.6(6)), and the order must say “By Consent” and be signed by each party or their legal representative (40.6(7)). The fee is £126 under the EX50 schedule in force from 13 July 2026.

What happens to the register entry if my CCJ is set aside?
Under regulation 11(2)(b) of the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines Regulations 2005, when the court officer learns that a judgment has been set aside or reversed, the officer must ask the Registrar to cancel the entry.

What if the judgment was made at a hearing I did not attend?
That is not a default judgment, and a different rule applies. Under CPR 39.3 you may apply to set it aside with evidence, and the court may grant it only if you acted promptly, had a good reason for not attending and have a reasonable prospect of success. On the small claims track, CPR 27.11 requires the application within 14 days after notice of the judgment was served on you.

Last reviewed: October 2026 · For use in England & Wales · eLitigant is a Community Interest Company (No. 16566612), not a law firm. Always check the current official form on GOV.UK before you file, and sign the statement of truth yourself.

✓ Checked against the official sources on 6 October 2026: Civil Procedure Rules Parts 2, 6, 12, 13, 15, 22, 23, 27, 39, 40 and 83 on justice.gov.uk, Practice Direction 51R, GOV.UK’s N244 guidance and Cancel the judgment page, the EX50 civil court fees, Help with Fees and the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines Regulations 2005.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.