The crucial part is whether that debt is disputed or undisputed. 

If undisputed, robust legal correspondence will often prompt payment; if not, court proceedings can be taken.  

If disputed, then pre-action correspondence will be used to prompt payment whilst laying the foundation for civil court proceedings. Court action would be necessary to prove that the money is legally owed. Once that is achieved, a ‘judgment debt’ is obtained and the process should become easier. For example, a range of enforcement measures can be deployed. These involve fixed but recoverable disbursements.  

You need to consider how to approach each debt at an early stage.  

Before starting a court claim, you must consider the following Checklist:-  

• Who is the debtor? 
• Is the debtor worth suing? (no sense throwing good money after bad) 
• Has the creditor addressed all genuine queries and disputes? 
• Why is the debtor not paying? 
• Has the creditor taken all practical steps to recover payment? 
• Is there a sound legal basis for the claim? 
• Can the claim be proved/evidenced – have we got copies of essential documents such as the contract and standard terms, exchanges of correspondence etc? 

You can seek to recover an undisputed debt by: 

• Engaging in reasoned legal correspondence; often a solicitor’s letter will show that the creditor is serious and is not going to be easily put off;  
• Issuing a money claim (civil court proceedings); 
• Using insolvency procedures, i.e. presenting a petition for a bankruptcy order (for an individual) or a winding up order (for a company). 

Our Fee Model for Debt Recovery cases is simple but effective:-    

• Fixed Fee Initial Consultation – £300 (non-returnable)

• “No-Win/No-Fee” – our fee is agreed percentage of any recovery 

Disbursements eg. court fees, counsel’s fees, will need to be paid regardless of the result. We will inform you of these as matters progress.  

The Fixed Fee consultation will investigate everything about the debt. We can then take an informed view on if and how to proceed. 

If we consider the claim has sufficient prospects, we will usually propose a no-win/no-fee where we take a percentage of the recovery as payment for our fees. This can be up to 50% of the recovered sum. 

For businesses with a considerable volume of debts, the percentage fee will usually be lower than a one-off case. Also, the size of the debt will likely affect the agreed percentage – the higher the debt, the lower the percentage. 

For individuals, a standard percentage would be one third (33.3%) of what is recovered – plus disbursements (which can be added to a judgment debt in any event). 

This is intended as a rough guide only and all fee arrangements will be subject to negotiation and agreed terms and conditions. 

Money claims 

The first step in bringing a claim is to send a formal letter of claim giving details of the debt and setting a deadline for payment. 

If that does not secure payment, you can then take formal action by issuing a claim. 

A court fee will also be payable. This varies according to the value of your claim. Full information on court fees is available here. 

Issuing claims online is cheaper than doing it in person. We can assist you with issuing claims in this way up to a value of £100,000 (claims above that threshold cannot presently be issued online). 

Where a claim is undisputed, the Defendant will either: 

• file an admission of the debt in which case you will be entitled to a judgment; or 
• fail to file a defence at all in which case we can apply for judgment in default on your behalf. 

If a letter of claim succeeds in prompting payment you could have a result in less than two weeks. If it is necessary to issue proceedings and obtain an uncontested judgment then the process will be subject to the timeframes the particular court is working to. On the plus side, that time can be compensated by a claim for interest. We would endeavour to get an indication from the particular Court where the claim is issued. 

The stated fee will generally include: 

• Taking your instructions and reviewing basic documentation in relation to the debt, e.g. contract, invoices, statement of account 
• Drafting and sending a letter of claim 
• Receiving payment and sending onto you, or if the debt is not paid, informing you of this 
• Drafting and issuing your claim – in the case of low and medium value claims it is assumed that the claim will be issued online and that we need only draft short particulars of claim as part of the online claim form 
• Where no acknowledgment of service or defence is received, applying to the court to enter judgment in default 
• When judgment in default in received, writing to the other side to request payment 

Please note that claims under £10,000 in value will generally be allocated to the small claims track of the County Court where only certain limited fixed costs are recoverable. We can estimate the costs of enforcement procedures as and when required.

For more details on how Damages Based Agreements (‘No-win/No-fee’) work, please see our Pricing page.