Debt recovery pricing
Pricing
Pricing and further information for you to recover a debt
We understand that cashflow is important to any business and the recovery of outstanding debts takes up valuable time. We offer a debt recovery service for both individuals and businesses and charge transparent fixed fees for the process.
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What work will you do for me?
First stage
We will:
take full instructions from you as to the nature of the debt, the length of time the debt has been owed and the actions you have taken to recover the debt to date
we will peruse your communications with your debtor to identify any underlying issues as to why payment has not been made as agreed
we will consider your invoices or the agreement to make payment to you for a service provided, considering the terms and basis of payment
We will draft and prepare a full Letter Before Action to your debtor that complies with the requirements of the Court’s Civil Procedure Rules
How long does it take?
Individuals will have 30 days to respond to the letter, businesses, 14 days
Second stage
If your debtor fails to reply to the letter before action, your next step will be issuing Court proceedings. We will:
draft and prepare a Claim Form with full Particulars setting out the debt owed, the interest you will be claiming, costs and any compensation – see below*
submit this to the Court for issuing, sealing and serving upon your debtor
*If your debt arises from a contract to supply goods or services where the purchaser and supplier are acting in the course of a business and it is not an excluded contract as set out in the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, then you can claim statutory interest on the debt at 8% per annum above the base rate of the Bank of England (rate as it was at the date of the invoice). Please note that you cannot claim statutory interest if there is a different rate of interest in a contract.
In addition, compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 may also be claimed as follows:
for a debt less than £1000, the sum of £40;
for a debt of £1000 or more, but less than £10,000, the sum of £70;
for a debt of £10,000 or more, the sum of £100.
Compensation may be claimed on each invoice once. If the reasonable costs of the business in recovering the debt are not met by the above fixed sum, the business shall also be entitled to a sum equivalent to the difference between the fixed sum and those costs.
How long does it take?
Once the Claim is issued and served by the Court upon the debtor, the debtor will have 14 days to respond to it
Third stage
If your debtor fails to respond to the Claim you are entitled to request a County Court Judgment for the full sum owed, plus any interest and costs.
We will:
request judgment on your behalf against the debtor from the Court
send the judgment to the debtor requesting payment and dealing with the initial responses including taking your instructions
Who will look after us?
We are very proud of the legal advisers we have here to assist clients through this process.
Name
Job Title
Hourly Rate
Senior Chartered Legal Executive
Julie Fisher
£290.00
Solicitor
Charlotte Leach
£270.00
How much will it cost?
We charge fees based on time spent per hour as contentious matters are often an unknown factor in terms of the time needed to deal with a particular matter. However, from experience, we can give an approximation of the time likely to be spent and therefore the cost will be in the ranges as set out below.
The first stage of the process will cost between £540.00 - £870.00 plus VAT at 20% regardless of the amount of your debt and will depend on the amount of correspondence and paperwork that we have to peruse to prepare the letter before action.
The second stage of the process will cost between £1,350.00 - £1,740.00 plus VAT at 20% depending on the length of time required to deal with the process. This stage also requires payment of a Court fee and that depends on the amount of your debt as follows:
Court fees
Up to but not exceeding £300 £35
Exceeds £300 but does not exceed £500 £50
Exceeds £500 but does not exceed £1,000 £70
Exceeds £1,000 but does not exceed £1,500 £80
Exceeds £1,500 but does not exceed £3,000 £115
Exceeds £3,000 but does not exceed £5,000 £205
Exceeds £5,000 but does not exceed £10,000 £455
Exceeds £10,000 but does not exceed £200,000 5% of the value of the Claim
Exceeds £200,000 or is not limited £10,000
What is not included in this example:
Tracing a debtor before the first or second stage.
Tracing a debtor before the first or second stage.
If a debtor replies to the letter and we therefore require your further instructions to enable us to reply.
If a Defence is served by the debtor to the Court Claim.
Fees for these additional services are based on hourly rates.
More complicated cases where a Defence is served by a debtor will be quoted on a case by case basis before we undertake any further work for you.
These will typically be:-
A Defence to payment of your invoice which requires a Reply to that Defence from you.
Any suggestion that the invoice debt is not owed.
Any queries regarding the debtor and their liability to pay the invoice.
The price we quote will be as accurate as we can make it and any potential variation will be highlighted for you before additional costs are incurred.
The third stage of the process will cost between £270 - £540 plus VAT at 20%. Any enforcement of a judgment is a separate process and costs estimates can be provided to suit the method of enforcement chosen.
Please contact us to discuss your requirements regarding debt collection.
For businesses with more than one debt or that require regular debt collection, please contact us to discuss other payment rates we may be able to offer in exchange for receiving bulk instructions.