Confiscation Orders: What Happens If You Cannot Pay

A confiscation order is a debt owed to the court, and serving the default prison sentence for not paying it does not clear the debt. That one point is the thing most people are never told, and it is the reason some families are still dealing with a confiscation order years after release.

Here is how the rules actually work, with the law they come from.

What a confiscation order is

A confiscation order is made by the Crown Court under Part 2 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. It orders you to pay a sum of money. It is not a fine, it is not compensation, and it is not part of your prison sentence in the way people assume.

It is enforced as though it were a fine, but it behaves like a debt that keeps running until it is paid.

When it has to be paid

The starting point is immediate. Section 11(1) of the Act says the full amount ordered to be paid "must be paid on the day on which the order is made".

If the court is satisfied you cannot pay it all that day, section 11(2) lets it allow you a period to pay, or several periods each covering part of the sum. Under section 11(3), that period starts on the day the order is made and "must not exceed three months".

Getting more time

You can apply to the Crown Court to extend that period, but the test is strict. Under section 11(4), the court may only extend if it is satisfied that, despite "all reasonable efforts", you cannot pay within the period you were given.

Two hard limits apply. An extended period still runs from the day the order was made and "must not exceed six months" (section 11(5)). And no extension order can be made more than six months after the day the order was made (section 11(6)), even if your application was in time.

The prosecutor must be given the chance to make representations before the court grants either (section 11(8)).

Interest starts running

Under section 12(1), if an amount is not paid when it is required to be paid, you "must pay interest on that amount for the period for which it remains unpaid".

The rate is the rate specified in section 17 of the Judgments Act 1838 (section 12(2)). That rate is currently 8 per cent per year, set by the Judgment Debts (Rate of Interest) Order 1993.

And under section 12(4), the interest "must be treated as part of the amount to be paid under the confiscation order". So the figure you owe is not fixed. On a large order left unpaid, interest alone can run into significant money.

The default prison sentence

When the Crown Court makes a confiscation order, it also fixes a term of imprisonment or detention to be served if the money is not paid. Section 35 of the Act applies parts of the Sentencing Code as if the sum were a fine, and section 35(2A) sets the maximum default terms:

• £10,000 or less — maximum 6 months
• More than £10,000 but not more than £500,000 — maximum 5 years
• More than £500,000 but not more than £1 million — maximum 7 years
• More than £1 million — maximum 14 years

Those are maximums, not automatic figures.

Under section 38(2), a default term does not begin to run until after the custodial term you are already liable to serve for the offence itself. It is served at the end of the sentence, not alongside it.

Serving it does not wipe the debt

This is the part that catches people out, and it is written plainly into the Act.

Section 38(5) provides that if a defendant serves a term of imprisonment or detention in default of paying, "his serving that term does not prevent the confiscation order from continuing to have effect so far as any other method of enforcement is concerned".

In other words: you can serve the default sentence in full and still owe the money, with interest still running. Enforcement by other means — receivers, charges on property, the civil courts — carries on.

When an order can be reduced

There is a route, and it is section 23, headed "inadequacy of available amount".

You, the prosecutor, or a receiver can apply to the Crown Court to vary the order. The court recalculates what is actually available to you as at the date of the application rather than the date of the original order. If it finds that figure is inadequate, it "may vary the order by substituting for the amount required to be paid such smaller amount" as it thinks just.

There is a limit. Under section 23(5), the court can disregard an inadequacy that it believes is attributable to steps taken to protect property held by someone who received a tainted gift. Moving assets out of reach is not a route to a reduction.

Where someone is bankrupt or a company is being wound up, the court must take into account how realisable property may be shared out among creditors.

When an order can be discharged

Section 24 allows discharge, but the conditions are narrow. Only the designated officer for a magistrates' court can apply. The amount still outstanding must be less than £1,000. And the shortfall must be due entirely to a prescribed reason — the one set out in the Act is currency exchange fluctuation affecting realisable property held outside sterling.

It is not a general hardship provision, and it is not something you apply for yourself.

A new system is on the statute book but not in force

Schedule 21 to the Crime and Policing Act 2026 would replace section 35 with new sections 35A to 35R, bringing in new enforcement machinery — including a provision that part payment reduces the default term proportionately, and rules on enforcement hearings, financial information orders and warrants.

The maximum default terms in the new table are the same four bands set out above.

Importantly, that paragraph was not in force at Royal Assent and is still marked as prospective, with no commencement date appointed. Pending changes would also replace sections 24 and 25. So the law described above is the law that applies now, but this is an area worth checking the date on.

What this means for you

Check what the order actually says. The sum, the time allowed to pay, and the default term should all be on the face of the order and in the sentencing remarks. People regularly discover the default term is not what they were told.

Do not assume the default sentence settles it. It does not. Section 38(5) is explicit.

If the available amount has genuinely changed, section 23 exists. Assets sold for less than the court assumed, property that turned out not to be yours, a valuation that was wrong at the time — those are the kinds of points a section 23 application is built on, and they are evidence points, not argument points.

Mind the appeal clock. A confiscation order is made by the Crown Court at the sentencing stage, and the route of challenge is an appeal to the Court of Appeal. Under rule 39.2 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2025, an appeal notice must be served not more than 28 days after sentence.

The honest position: confiscation orders are rarely wiped out, but the figure in the order is more often open to challenge than people realise, because it was built on assumptions about what you had. Those assumptions can be tested against documents.

Talk to Case Review UK

Case Review UK provides independent written assessments of criminal cases by senior UK lawyers and barristers. If you have a confiscation order, we can look at the order, the sentencing remarks and the financial paperwork and tell you in writing what the figure was based on and whether there is anything realistically open to you.

Fixed fee, no hourly billing. Documents are submitted securely and the written report follows in 7 to 14 days. We are independent of the police, the CPS and the court that dealt with the case. If there is nothing worth pursuing, the report will say so.

WhatsApp: +44 7417 361696
Email: enquiries@casereviewuk.co.uk

This article is general information about the law in England and Wales, correct at the date of publication. It is not legal advice on any individual case, and Case Review UK is not a substitute for a solicitor.