 Regardless of the size or scope of your business delays receiving payment of an invoice are never welcome. Barnes Marsland Solicitors have a fully computerised debt recovery and collection service making the process fast, efficient and cost effective for their wide range of business clients. This service is managed by Sarah Woods who is a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives.
All you need to do is provide us with details i.e. the name and address of the debtor, the amount which they owe to you and the date of the last invoice you sent them. We will then send your debtor a formal letter before action advising that court proceedings will be started if payment is not received by you within 7 days. You will also receive a copy of the letter. At the expiry of the 7 days, if you let us know that payment has not been received by you then we will, if you so wish, commence proceedings against the debtor.
For taking instructions and sending a letter before action we charge £25 plus VAT. If you would like to instruct us please download the Debtor Recovery Information Form complete this, sign the declaration and send it to us with a copy of the invoice(s) detailing the outstanding fees together with your remittance of £25 + VAT.
Any correspondence received from the debtor will be referred to you up to this stage and if you wish us to reply or be involved with telephone calls on your behalf then our hourly rate of charges will apply. You are under no obligation to commence proceedings if you do not wish to do so.
You will be in the best position to decide whether you think that the debtor is able to pay. Where a dispute is foreseen or materialises or indeed you instruct us to correspond with the debtor then the matter can be pursued through our litigation department and in these cases the fees charged are on a time basis.
If you do not receive a response to our letter before action and you decide we should issue proceedings then on receipt of instructions a claim form will be prepared and sent to you for signature. It is at this stage the court fee becomes payable to issue the claim. This fee is on a scale according to the size of the debt and starts at £30 increasing in accordance with the debt figure. Please download our Debt Recovery Costs Guide. Our fees are also detailed.
Our fees for the debt recovery will be added to the debt together with the court fee and are recoverable from the debtor if the claim is successful but if not, these costs will be your responsibility.
After service of the claim form if the debt is still not paid and no Defence has been filed then judgment will be entered and enforcement action can be taken. Details of the different methods of enforcement are given under “Enforcement “.
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