Debt collection and Small Claims Court disputes

We provide a business debt recovery service that is simple, effective and fast. We typically deal with invoice debts and when payment problems arise for your business, we focus on recovering your debts on a low cost basis.

We also act for people wishing to issue small claims for faulty work done by a business or debts owed under an agreement such as a tenancy agreement.

Procedure

We typically start with a letter before action when your instructions are sent to us.

• We send a formal letter warning of court action if payment is not received or faults not fixed within seven days. In many cases this is enough to prompt action or payment, but should the issue still be outstanding after the allotted time you can choose to instruct us to proceed with court action.
• To instruct us to send a letter before action, we only require a copy of the invoice or other paperwork including the name and address of the person/company along with the amount that is owed or work to be done.
• An alternative to the letter before action is a late payment demand, which allows you to claim interest, compensation and your reasonable debt collection costs under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

We recommend that a credit/status check on your debtor is initially obtained, so we can ascertain whether it is a case worth pursuing. We can do this via a Companies House search or bankruptcy check.

The debtor is now liable to pay all costs of default proceedings so we can, in some cases, recover your costs.

Court procedures

If they have failed to pay after the ‘Letter Before Action‘ or ‘Late Payment Demand’, you can instruct us to issue court proceedings against them. When we receive your instructions we will lodge the county court claim form with the court. Once the court serves the claim form on them, they have 21 days to admit and pay the debt, enter into negotiation to settle or defend the action.

If they do not pay after issue of court action proceedings and no defence has been filed the next step available is to issue a County Court Judgment (CCJ).

We will usually charge per hour and depending on the complexity of the case.

Please contact us for a more information or to arrange a review of your business needs.