Debt recovery pricing and timescales
Pricing
Where your claim is in relation to an unpaid invoice which is not disputed and enforcement action is not needed we charge £125 for taking your instructions and sending the debtor a letter before action with supporting documentation, and reporting to you, with payment, if received by us.
If further work is necessary but the claim is not disputed this will be charged at £175 per hour.
If the other party disputes your claim at any point, or there is a counterclaim or enforcement action of any judgement obtained is necessary, we charge for this work on an hourly basis. The hourly rates of our staff who may be working on your file are:-
| Partners | £275.00 |
| Solicitors with five years or more experience | £245.00 |
| Administration Assistants/Paralegals | £110.00 |
The hourly rates of Legal Executives with similar experience are the same as those for solicitors.
All fees attract VAT at the rate of 20%.
If money is recovered before court proceedings are started, the debtor will have to pay nothing towards your legal costs.
“Small claims” are those of less than £10,000. If Court proceedings are issued in a small claim extremely limited costs are recoverable from the debtor – limited to the court fee paid and some very limited fixed costs. Any costs received from the debtor will be retained by us.
In claims where more than £10,000 is recovered the debtor will be ordered to pay some costs but again they will be limited and will be retained by us.
In all cases, if court fees are recovered from the debtor we will refund them to you.
There is a scale of fees charged by the court on the issue of proceedings. These range from between £35 for a debt up to £300, through to £455 for debt up to £10,000 and 5% of the amount claimed for a debt in excess of £10,000. There is no VAT on court fees.
The VAT element of our fee cannot be reclaimed from your debtor for a business to business debt
Interest and compensation may take the debt into a higher bending for the court fee
The above costs do not include enforcement action
Timescale
It usually takes between 3 weeks and 6 weeks from receipt of instructions from you to receipt of payment from the other side after we have sent a letter before action. For debts owed by individuals to businesses,the Debt Recovery Protocol provides the other side with 30 days in which to respond to the letter of claim. Some debtors will take the full amount of time to respond. This assumes the debt is not disputed.
If it becomes necessary to issue a claim form to recover your debt the matter will usually take between 8 and 12 weeks to resolve on the basis that the other side pays promptly on receipt of the judgement in default. It will take longer if there are any delays with the Court. If enforcement action is needed the matter will take longer to resolve.
