The Magistrates' Courts (Northern Ireland) Order 1981

Compliance with order by employer N.I.

102.—(1) Where an attachment of earnings order has been made by a court of summary jurisdiction the employer shall, if he has been served with the order, comply with it; but he shall be under no liability for non-compliance before seven days have elapsed since the service.

(2) If on a pay-day the attachable earnings exceed the sum of—

(a) the protected earnings; and

(b) so much of any amount by which the attachable earnings on any previous pay-day fell short of the protected earnings as has not been made good by virtue of this paragraph on another previous pay-day,

then, in so far as the excess allows, the employer shall deduct from the attachable earnings the amount specified in paragraph (3).

(3) That amount is the sum of—

(a) the normal deduction; and

(b) so much of the normal deduction on any previous pay-day as was not deducted on that day and has not been paid by virtue of this paragraph on any other previous pay-day.

(4) No deduction shall be made on any pay-day when the attachable earnings are equal to, or less than, the protected earnings.

(5) Where a person is served with an attachment of earnings order directed to him and he has not the debtor in his employment,or the debtor subsequently ceases to be in his employment, he shall (in either case), within ten days from the date of service or, as the case may be, the cesser, give notice of that fact to such officer of the court as may be prescribed by magistrates' courts rules.

(6) Part II of Schedule 1 to the Judgments Enforcement (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 has effect with respect to the priority to be accorded as between two or more attachment of earnings orders directed to a person either by the Enforcement of Judgments Office and a court, or by a court, in respect of the same debtor.

(7) Any sums paid by the employer under an attachment of earnings order shall be treated as sums paid by the debtor.

(8) On any occasion when the employer makes, in compliance with the order, a deduction from the debtor's earnings—

(a) he shall be entitled to deduct, in addition, £0.50 or such other sum as may be prescribed by judgment enforcement rules towards his clerical and administrative costs; and

(b) he shall give to the payer a statement in writing of the total amount of the deduction.

(9) Any sum deducted by the employer from the debtor's earnings in compliance with the order, but not yet paid to the person mentioned in Article 101(3)(b), shall in the bankruptcy or winding up of the employer be treated as money held by the employer on trust for that person.

(10) In this Article—

• “attachable earnings”, in relation to a pay-day, are the earnings which remain payable to the debtor on that day after deduction by the employer of—

  (a)

  income tax;

  (b)

  primary Class 1 contributions under Part I of the Social Security (Northern Ireland) Act 1975;

  (c)

  amounts deductible under any statutory provision, or in pursuance of a request in writing by the debtor, for the purposes of a superannuation scheme within the meaning of[F1 paragraph 3(c) of Schedule 1 to the Judgments Enforcement (Northern Ireland) Order 1981];

• “the normal deduction”, in relation to any pay-day, means the deduction arrived at by applying the normal deduction rate (as specified in the attachment of earnings order) with respect to the period since the last pay-day or, if it is the first pay-day of the debtor's employment with the employer, since the employment began;

• “pay-day”, in relation to earnings paid to a debtor, means an occasion on which they are paid;

• “the protected earnings”, in relation to any pay-day, means the amount arrived at by applying the protected earnings rate (as specified in the attachment of earnings order) with respect to the period since the last pay-day or, if it is the first pay-day of the debtor's employment with the employer, since the employment began.

F1 1988 NI 7