How much does debt recovery cost and how long will it take?

Our litigation team has many years of experience of recovering debts for clients across all kinds of organisations, allowing you to concentrate on running your business.

We offer a bespoke service where we will consider each case properly and tailor each claim to your needs. The below is a guideline for our prices in a typical case. We will tell you whether your case is a typical case or not when we take it on. 

Matters making the case more complicated include a substantial amount of documentation, the likelihood that the debt will be disputed and whether we think any further enquiries need to be made before we issue your claim. We may, for example, recommend that we speak with the people involved with the matter that is the cause of the debt before advising you further.

Court Claims
These costs apply where your claim is in relation to an unpaid invoice which is not disputed and enforcement action is not needed. If the other party disputes your claim at any point, we will discuss any further work required and 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.

Anyone wishing to proceed with a claim should note that:

• if you are VAT registered the VAT element of our fee cannot be reclaimed from the debtor but you will be able to recover the VAT element of our fee from HMRC Anyone wishing to proceed with a claim should note that:
• if you are not VAT registered you can claim the VAT element of our costs from the debtor
• interest and compensation may take the debt into a higher banding with a higher cost, and
• the costs quoted above do not include where enforcement action, such as instructing a bailiff, is needed to collect your debt.

Our fee includes:

• taking your instructions and reviewing documentation
• undertaking appropriate searches
• sending a letter before action
• receiving payment and sending it onto you, or if the debt is not paid, drafting and issuing claim
• where no acknowledgment of service or defence is received, applying to the court to enter judgment in default
• when judgment in default in received, write to the other side to request payment, and
• if payment is not received within 28 days, providing you with advice on next steps and likely costs.

As a rough guideline only, matters usually take eight to 12 weeks from receipt of instructions from you to receipt of payment from the other side, although it could be much quicker if it is not necessary to issue a claim. This allows time for a letter of claim and 14 days for the debtor to pay, issuing proceedings and the time it takes for the court to process proceedings, the time a defendant is allowed to acknowledge the proceedings and enter a defence, and the time it takes to process a judgment in default and for it to be returned to us and served on the defendant. This is on the basis that the other side pays promptly on receipt of judgment in default.

These are guidelines only and it can take longer depending on the circumstances. If enforcement action is needed, we will advise you about the cost and the best process to follow.  This will be in addition to the costs outlined above.

Defended claims
If a claim becomes defended we will need to provide you with a revised estimate to take your case through to trial. Our fees will then be based on hourly rates of £160 to £265 plus VAT per hour and we can give you an idea of overall costs based on the many cases we have dealt with before.

If you have issued a claim yourself and received a defence we would be very happy to provide you with advice.  In these cases we can deal with the case through to trial or we can provide you with a one off advice or advice on a particular stage in proceedings such as preparation of witness statements or preparing for trial. We can give you an estimate of overall costs when we initially discuss the case with you.