Our debt recovery solicitors act for individuals and businesses and have the experience to recover your money promptly via the most cost-effective solution for you.
Acting swiftly and effectively where there are late paying clients and customers, and keeping on top of this, is crucial for the longevity of a business. Late payments can have serious ramifications for businesses and individuals who are also owed money as it could place them in serious financial difficulty, which could potentially lead to insolvency as a result. .
County Court Claims
It is important to have a strict credit control process in place, but in some cases, formal legal action may be unavoidable. If there has been no payment and no response to your correspondence chasing up the debt, you can issue a County Court Claim. The debt may be taken more seriously when your customer receives a copy of the proceedings from the court and can act as an incentive for them to make payment if they want to avoid spending time and money defending the claim. Additionally, a County Court Judgment could significantly affect their ability to gain credit, which may further incentivise payment being made.
However, it’s important to be aware that issuing proceedings might not prompt the debtor to make payment of the debt and they may ignore the claim. If this proves to be the case, in order to recover payment, you would need to take further action to enforce the judgment.
County Court Judgments
If you succeed in your claim, you will obtain a County Court Judgment. This is an enforceable court order which demands payment of the debt, certain legal costs plus interest. If the judgment debt is not paid within 30 days, it will be registered against the debtor and may have a detrimental effect on their credit rating. Should the debtor continue to refuse to make the payment, enforcement options are available. Please contact one of our legal experts to discuss your options in these circumstances.
Insolvency
You can commence insolvency action against a debtor if the value of the debt is more than £750 for a company and £5,000 if it’s owed by an individual. The first step is to serve a statutory demand, which gives the debtor 21 days to make payment or be faced with a winding-up or bankruptcy petition, depending on whether it’s a company or individual debt. This option is available if the debtor is located in England or Wales and the debt is not disputed.
Our services include:
- Drafting official debt recovery letters, letters before action, claim form and particulars of claim to issue proceedings, settlement discussions and settlement agreements.
- Alternative dispute resolution measures.
- The drafting of trading terms and conditions.
- Advising on measures to deal with late or non-payers.
- Enforcing court judgments.
- Drafting and serving statutory demands.
- Issuing winding up orders and bankruptcy petitions.
Our debt recovery team is accredited by Lexcel, the legal practice quality mark for client care, compliance and practice management.
For more information, please email litigation@grantsaw.co.uk or contact one of our legal experts on 020 8858 6971.
Meet the Debt Recovery team
