Form D50K: When Your Ex Won't Pay What the Court Ordered

Part of: Enforcement of Financial Court Orders

Form D50K is the form you use to ask the family court to collect money that a court order told someone to pay, by whichever method the court thinks fits. It starts an application under rule 33.3(2)(b) of the Family Procedure Rules 2010. Once the court issues it, the other person has to set out their finances and answer questions about them in court. The judge then decides how to collect the money. This guide covers the law in England and Wales.

For orders that require someone to do something other than pay, such as signing a property transfer, see our guide to enforcing financial court orders.

What is form D50K, and when do you use it?

The D50K is a nine-page HMCTS application that starts enforcement of a family court order for money, while leaving the choice of method to the court. You use it when the other person has missed payments and you do not know enough about their income or assets to pick a method yourself.

The first page is blunt about this. If you already want a specific method, it tells you to use that method’s own application and pay its fee instead. The current version carries an April 2023 date, and HMCTS also publishes it in Welsh.

In most cases you will be enforcing a financial order from a divorce or dissolution, for example monthly spousal maintenance or a lump sum. Part 33 is wider than that, though: rule 33.1 applies it to any order made in family proceedings. A promise to pay given to the court as an undertaking can be enforced in the same way, where it has effect as an order under Part 2 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (Practice Direction 33A, para 2.1).

Child maintenance worked out by the Child Maintenance Service is different. The CMS enforces its own calculations, and it can make a deduction from earnings order itself (Child Support Act 1991, s.31). Our child maintenance guide covers that route.

D50K or a specific method: which enforcement route fits?

Choose a D50K when the court first needs to find out what the other person has; choose a specific method when you already know where the money is. The fees differ, and so does the pace, because a D50K always begins with a hearing about their means.

Every fee above comes from the family enforcement section of EX50, and the descriptions follow GOV.UK’s guide to enforcing a judgment. You pay an attachment of earnings fee for each person the order is against, and a charging order fee for each charge. The judgment summons sits apart from the rest, because it can end in prison under section 5 of the Debtors Act 1869. Our guide to committal proceedings explains how the court treats that step.

Is form D50K your route? Three questions to check

A D50K is your route when a court order set the payments and you do not know enough about their job, accounts or property to pick a method yourself. Answer three questions about the money you are owed, and the panel shows which route fits, what to watch on the arrears and what you pay to start. Nothing you choose leaves this page.

How to fill in form D50K, section by section

Work through it in order: the court and the order, both parties' details, a statement of what is owed, the statement of truth and the fee page. Most of the effort goes into the statement on pages 5 to 7, because that is where the figures have to add up.

Pages 1 to 4: the order you are enforcing, and the parties

1. Name the court and give the case number if you know it. You are the judgment creditor; the person who owes the money is the judgment debtor.
2. Give the date of the order, what it told them to pay and the payment dates it set.
3. Add your own address, phone number and email.
4. Add theirs. If you give an email address, you confirm that, as far as you know, only they can read it. The court serves the application by email unless you ask for post or say you will arrange service yourself. Avoid a work address, which the form warns may not be private.

Pages 5 to 9: the amount owed, the truth and the fee

5. Questions 1 and 2. For regular payments, give the rate, how often they fall due and the arrears today. For a one-off sum, give the date it was due and how much, if anything, they have paid.
6. Question 3. Confirm that they live or run their business in that court's area, or that the court made the order. GOV.UK's court and tribunal finder tells you which court covers an address.
7. Question 4. Claim interest only where the court ordered it or it is otherwise payable on the debt.
8. Question 5. Show how you reached the total, and attach your working.
9. Question 6. Say whether you know of an application to vary the order.
10. Question 7. Tick it if you will ask the court, at the hearing, for permission to enforce arrears more than twelve months old.
11. Sign the statement of truth, then complete the fee page with your payment method or Help with Fees reference.

Questions 1 to 5 do a legal job. Rule 33.3(1) says the application must come with a statement of the amount due, showing how it was arrived at, verified by a statement of truth. A false statement made without an honest belief in its truth can lead to proceedings for contempt of court, so check every figure against your bank records.

How much is the D50K court fee?

You pay £63 when you apply. HMCTS lists it as fee 12.1, for an application in the family court for such method of enforcement as the court may consider appropriate.

You may pay less, or nothing, through Help with Fees. Eligibility depends on your savings, your benefits and your income. You can apply before you pay, or within three months afterwards if you were eligible at the time. The fee page on the form has a box for your reference number, and another if you are sending the paper EX160 form instead.

What happens after you file form D50K?

The court issues an order telling the other person to complete a financial statement and come to court to answer questions about their means on oath. At that hearing, the judge can make any of the enforcement orders the form lists.

1. The order sets the date, time and place they must attend, to answer on oath any questions the court requires (r.33.3(3)(a)).
2. They complete a financial statement on the form served with the order. The D50K form names Form E1. They must file it, with any documents it asks for, and send you a copy at least seven days before the hearing (r.33.3(3)(b) and (c)).
3. The order carries a penal notice (r.33.3(4)). That is a warning on its front that disobeying it can be punished as a contempt of court, by a fine or imprisonment among other things (r.37.2).
4. At the hearing they answer questions, and the court decides which method of enforcement to order.

Arrears that are more than a year old

If your order was made under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, as most divorce financial orders are, you need the court's permission to enforce arrears that fell due more than twelve months before you begin enforcement (s.32(1)). The court can refuse, grant permission on conditions such as payment by instalments, or remit part or all of the arrears (s.32(2)). So a payment missed eleven months ago may need permission a few weeks from now, and waiting can cost you money.

Mistakes that slow a D50K application down

• Using it when you already know about a job, an account or a property. A specific method is often quicker, and the D50K form itself points you there.
• Giving a total that does not match the order. List each payment due, the date and what arrived, then add it up.
• Leaving question 7 blank when some arrears are more than a year old. Permission is then a surprise at the hearing.
• Sending it to a court that neither made the order nor covers where they live or work.
• Using their work email for service.
• Forgetting a pending variation application at question 6, when you sign that the form is true.

If the order itself is still being agreed, our pages on the financial consent order and on what happens once a consent order is sealed explain how to word payment terms that are easier to enforce later.

Form D50K: frequently asked questions

General information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your circumstances.