CDER Group Payment Plans: Setting Up an Arrangement

An instalment arrangement is something CDER and the creditor agree to at their discretion rather than something the law entitles you to, so how you offer, what evidence sits behind the figure, and above all when you offer are the things that change the answer. The national standards expect creditors to act proportionately in recovering debt, which is the lever behind a well-evidenced offer.

The payment channels CDER operates

CDER's own payment options page lists the channels it runs, and knowing them in advance beats hunting for them with an agent at the door:

• The customer portal at customer.cdergroup.co.uk, open around the clock, where you can check the balance, pay in full, update your details and, once registered, view arrangement options and set up a payment plan. Registering needs the CDER reference and the client reference printed on their correspondence.
• A separate portal for HMCTS cases at hmcts-customer.cdergroup.co.uk, used where the debt is a magistrates' fine rather than a council debt.
• An automated payment line on 0330 460 5295, which CDER describes as available 24 hours a day.
• Webchat on their website, weekdays 8am to 4pm, which is the route CDER itself points to for anyone struggling to make a payment or who has missed one that was agreed.

Those details are as published by CDER at the time of writing. Check them against your own letter before paying, and be cautious of any payment link that arrives by text message: type the portal address yourself instead.

The compliance window is where a plan is cheapest

Once CDER issue a Notice of Enforcement, you have at least 14 clear days before goods can be taken into control, and a recognised debt advice provider can request an extension to a minimum of 28 clear days unless the debt is a non-eligible business debt. That window exists precisely so people can pay or arrange without a visit.

The money at stake is fixed by regulation. Under the fee scale in force from 1 May 2026, the compliance stage adds £79, the enforcement stage adds £247 plus 7.5% of any part of the debt over £1,900 once an agent attends, and a sale stage adds £116 if goods are removed. An arrangement concluded inside the notice period therefore usually carries £79 in fees; the same arrangement a fortnight later, after a visit, starts from £326. Nothing else about the plan changes, only its price.

What a written arrangement should look like

Make a specific offer based on your income and essential outgoings rather than inviting CDER to name a figure, and set it out on a standard financial statement if you can, since an evidenced number is harder to refuse. If your circumstances make enforcement harder to deal with, illness, disability, bereavement or anything similar, say so in writing at the same time.

Where an agent has already attended, an instalment plan is normally recorded alongside a controlled goods agreement. The regulations are prescriptive about that document: it must be in writing and signed, it must list the goods taken into control in enough detail to identify them, it must state the repayment terms you have agreed, and you must be given a copy at the time it is signed. Read the inventory line by line before signing, because goods that are exempt, or that belong to someone else in the household, should not be on it.

A missed instalment restarts the clock

An enforcement agent normally has 12 months from the Notice of Enforcement to take control of goods. Under regulation 9(2) of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, if you make a repayment arrangement after the notice and then breach it, that 12-month period restarts from the date of the breach. A broken controlled goods agreement can also, where the statutory conditions are met, allow the agent to re-enter for the listed goods.

Both consequences are avoidable in the same way: contact CDER before a payment fails, not after. Their webchat and phone routes exist for exactly this conversation, and an arrangement varied by agreement is treated very differently from one broken in silence. Send updated figures showing what has changed and what you can now sustain.

If CDER refuse the offer

A refusal of an offer you can evidence as affordable is not the end of it. The council, court or other creditor who instructed CDER can intervene, accept payment terms directly in some cases, or recall the case, and a written request to them setting out the offer and the evidence often succeeds where the agent said no. Our guide to a bailiff refusing your payment plan covers that escalation step by step, and the full statutory scale is set out under bailiff fees. For what CDER can and cannot do more generally, see the CDER Group profile, and if you need someone to look at the whole position, get help now.