Debt Recovery

Final Demands / Phone Calls / Faxes / E-Mails

Although most clients may have already written for payment, a letter from a solicitor does carry a lot of extra weight and a large percentage of debtors do respond at this stage. They appreciate that the warnings are no longer an idle threat. Strategic applications (particularly for ‘key personnel’ such as company directors) are also sent by fax and e-mail to maximise the effect.

Our litigation team will also phone your debtors at key times of the day or evening to pin down decision makers and cheque signatories who may have avoided you in the past. We are tenacious.

County Court Action

If our pre-legal actions fail to stir up the right response and Insolvency is inappropriate, then it is time to move on to the issue and service of legal proceedings through the County Court. Since a recent overhaul of the Court service, all money claims are now issued in this way, although if your claim is less than £5K it will be subjected to the Small Claims procedure. Claims issued by us will be dealt with generally within 48 hours of receiving your appropriate court fee and paperwork.

The debtor then has 14 days from the actual date of service to pay, admit the debt and make an offer, or dispute the action. Some debtors may ‘try it on’ by returning the papers pretending they have ‘gone away’ which is where we use process servers. Any disputed claim will generally end up being dealt with as a Court Hearing in front of a District Judge. We can represent you at this hearing for a fixed fee if required. If the debtors still fail to pay once a court judgement is obtained then it will be time to consider the various enforcement procedures.

Insolvency / Bankruptcy

This is often the most effective and quickest way of securing settlement but is best applied to debts of say over £3K.The process normally begins with the issue of a statutory demand and this is then personally delivered by one of our nationwide process servers who charge a small fee.

This gives the debtors 21 days to pay up and our current statistics show that around 80% positively respond. If they ignore this, our customers then have the right to issue a Bankruptcy or Winding Up Petition against the debtor.