These costs apply where your claim is in relation to a simple unpaid invoice which is not disputed and enforcement action is not needed. If the other party disputes your claim at any point, further work will be required and we will provide you with revised advice about costs if necessary, which could be on a fixed fee (e.g. if a one-off letter is required), or an hourly rate if more extensive work is needed. (Our hourly rates for this area of work range from £120 (+ £24 VAT) to £275 (+ £55 VAT).

If you require more detailed advice, prior to commencement, we can arrange an initial consultation as a fixed fee appointment with you to discuss your options at a cost of £360  (£300 +£60 VAT).

We can send a simple demand for payment, ordinarily at a cost of £240 (£200 + £40 VAT).  If that demand is ignored, the table below gives an indication of the likely costs and disbursements incurred in preparing a claim form and issuing proceedings. Disbursements are costs that would be incurred on your behalf, ordinarily limited to the Court fee (there is no VAT to be paid on the Court fee) but on more valuable or complex matters may include barristers fees and this may incur VAT.

The above fees would include preparation and issue of the claim form with the Court and requesting default Judgment in the absence of a response.

If a response is received contesting the claim through any of the above stages, total costs will depend very much upon the arguments raised.  We will, however, discuss those comments with you and will agree costs budgets before moving forward.

Anyone wishing to proceed with a claim should note that:

·         You may not recover all of your costs from the debtor even if successful, in particular;

·         Interest and compensation may take the debt into a higher banding, with a higher cost.

·         The costs quoted above are for matters where enforcement action, such as the bailiff, is not needed to collect your debt.

Fee of £390 (£325 + £65 VAT) for simple debts under £10,000 includes the following key stages:

·         Taking your instructions and briefly reviewing documentation

·         Undertaking appropriate searches

·         Preparing and issuing the claim form with the Court

·         Receiving payment and sending to you, or providing advice on next steps if the debt is not paid.

Further work upon which fees can be agreed:    

·         Considering extensive documentation

·         Negotiating following a denial of liability 

·         Preparing a reply to any Defence

·         Enforcement following the receipt of Judgement (such as the instruction of Bailiffs which could incur a further disbursement and cost in their instruction)

Matters usually take 1 – 12 months from receipt of instructions from you to receipt of payment from the other side, depending on whether the other side responds to the letter of claim and whether or not it is necessary to issue a claim.

We would ordinarily expect a response to the Letter of claim within 30 days (an individual would need to be given 30 days to respond). If payment is not received in this time we will normally be in a position to draft a claim form and issue the claim within a further 2 to 3 weeks. 

How long matters take from there depends very much upon the Court.  The Court are presently experiencing an extremely large backlog. Once the claim is issued, the Defendant will have 14 days to respond.  If they fail to respond in that time we will request default judgement.  Again, the court are currently experiencing extremely long backlogs in returning these.

If enforcement action is needed, the matter will take longer to resolve and a further estimate of timescales will be provided at that time.

The debt recovery team has over 20 years of collective experience in delivering high quality work in all matters relating to debt recovery.

We have four members of the team who may work on your matter. Regardless of who works on your matter, they will be supervised by Phil Masters, Partner and head of Dispute Resolution.