Our Debt Recovery Fees and a breakdown of the costs involved
Do you have a business debt that you need help to recover? We can assist you with all or any part of the claims process. To recover a debt, you may need to follow some or all of these steps
| Step 1: Initial Letter |
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| The type of letter will depend on who owes the money and what you are claiming. These are generally referred to as pre-action letters.
We will need to carry out Identity checks on you (and possibly on your business) to take you on as a client. Individual ID checks are £15 + VAT at 20% and Company ID checks are £20 + VAT at 20%. Our fee for the initial letter is then £150 + VAT at 20%. All fees will be taken from you on instruction and be billed and payable once the letter has been sent. For this, we will prepare the initial letter (within 7 working days of receiving the relevant information from you) and send it to the person or company who owes you (the debtor). The debtor then has 30 days to respond to the letter. You may receive payment in this time. If you do not, we will let you know what, if any, response the debtor gave and what your next steps are. You can then decide if you want to take those steps on your own or if you want our help with these. Please see below for what is involved and the possible fees. |
| Step 2: Issue Court Claim |
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| If you have issued a pre-action letter (see above), whether on your own or with our help, and if this did not result in payment of the debt or if the debtor did not put forward a reason why the debt should not be paid, we can help with issuing a claim.
If we did not issue the pre-action letter, we will need to carry out Identity checks on you (and possibly on your business) to take you on as a client. Individual ID checks are £15 + VAT at 20% and Company ID checks are £20 + VAT at 20%. The cost for issuing a court claim depends on the size of the debt as set out below: |
| Debt Amount* | Legal Fee | Court Fee |
|---|---|---|
| £25 to £300 | £100 + VAT at 20% | £35 |
| £301 to £500 | £125 + VAT at 20% | £50 |
| £501 to £1,000 | £145 + VAT at 20% | £70 |
| £1,001 to £1,500 | £160 + VAT at 20% | £80 |
| £1,501 to £3,000 | £175 + VAT at 20% | £115 |
| £3,001 to £5,000 | £200 + VAT at 20% | £205 |
| £5,001 to £10,000 | £250 + VAT at 20% | £455 |
| £10,001 to £25,000 | £350 + VAT at 20% | 5% of Debt Amount |
| £25,001 to £50,000 | £450 + VAT at 20% | 5% of Debt Amount |
| £50,001 to £75,000 | £550 + VAT at 20% | 5% of Debt Amount |
| £75,001 to £100,000 | £650 + VAT at 20% | 5% of Debt Amount |
*Please note that you are likely to be able to add interest to the debt amount and this could mean the debt changes to a different charge bracket.
All fees will be taken on instruction and will be billed and payable on issuing the claim.
We can issue the court claim within 7 working days of you instructing us to do so. The debtor then has 14 days to enter a defence to the claim.
If no defence is submitted after 14 days, you have the right to apply for a default judgement on the debt. A judgement is known as a County Court Judgement or CCJ. See below as to what this means, and any costs attached.
If the debtor responded to your pre-action letter with a reason why the debt should not be paid or if they enter a defence to the court claim, it is likely that you will need to enter into correspondence or mediation with them before any formal action can be taken. We can assist with this and information about this service, known as a disputed service, is set out here.
| Step 3: Get Judgment (CCJ) |
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| We can help you get a judgement whether we have been involved in previous stages or not.
If we have not been previously involved, we will need to carry out Identity checks on you (and possibly on your business) to take you on as a client. Individual ID checks are £15 + VAT at 20% and Company ID checks are £20 + VAT at 20%. If there has been no defence filed to a court claim within 14 days, we can apply for a judgement. Our fee for debts (including interest) of £5,000 or under is £65 + VAT at 20% or if the debt is over £5,000, it is £80 + VAT at 20%. There is also a further court fee payable for this based on the Debt Amount as set out in the table below. All fees will be taken from you on instruction and be billed and payable once the letter has been sent. |
| Debt Amount* | Court Fees |
|---|---|
| £25 to £300 | £35 |
| £301 to £500 | £50 |
| £501 to £1,000 | £70 |
| £1,001 to £1,500 | £80 |
| £1,501 to £3,000 | £115 |
| £3,001 to £5,000 | £205 |
| £5,001 to £10,000 | £455 |
| £10,001 to £100,000 | 5% of Debt Amount |
This does not include dealing with a defence to the claim at any stage. If you need help with a defence, we can assist with this, but this is known as a disputed service, and you can find out more about this here.
| Step 3: Enforce Judgment |
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| Many claims get resolved at earlier stages of the process. Whether this is in full settlement of the claim, a payment plan being entered, or a negotiation/settlement being reached.
If this is not the case and you have successfully obtained a judgement against the debt, you may need to take steps to enforce that judgement to get paid. There are various options for enforcement and the right option may depend on who owes the debt and what they can afford to pay. These options are:
First, find out what the debtor can afford to pay by asking the court for the debtor to provide evidence of their income (for individuals) or accounts (for businesses). This will help you work out the best way of enforcing the judgement. We can talk you through the options and the process and assist you with asking the court to enforce the judgement. If we have not helped you with previous steps of this process, we will need to carry out Identity checks on you (and possibly on your business) to take you on as a client. Individual ID checks are £15 + VAT at 20% and Company ID checks are £20 + VAT at 20%. The fees for issuing the paperwork for the enforcement are set out below. |
| Enforcement Action | Legal Fee | Court Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Application for debtor to attend court to provide information | £300 + VAT at 20% | £59 |
| Request bailiff service of an order for a debtor to attend court for questioning | £150 + VAT at 20% | £119 |
| Warrant of Control | £350 + VAT at 20% | £83 |
| Warrant of Delivery | £350 + VAT at 20% | £130 |
| Further attempt for a warrant of control or delivery (new address) | £175 + VAT at 20% | £33 |
| Attachment of Earnings | £250 + VAT at 20% | £119 |
| Charging Order | £750 + VAT at 20% | £119 |
| Third Party Debt Order | £450 + VAT at 20% | £119 |
We will issue the application for enforcement action within 7 working days of receiving your instructions. This process can take between 3 and 12 months depending upon court processing times.
Any representations needed to the court in addition to the initial application are part of our disputed service and you can find out more about this here.
Additional Services
If you would like us to chase up any letters sent or claims, we charge £25 + VAT at 20% for each telephone call or letter requested. This would be billed and payable at the time of sending the letter or making the call.
