What can be done before starting legal action for a debt?

Legal action should always be seen as the final step in debt collection. There are other alternatives steps to consider resolving the issue before embarking on a legal route. The first step to recovering the money you are owed is to use a pre-legal approach. We offer fixed fee pre-legal collection. We use email, letters and telephone to chase debts on your behalf. We report back to you at all stages, with a final review report. At this point, based on the outcome, you can decide to take matters further and use court action. This service allows you to utilise the Late Payment Legislation, so you can add compensation and interest to the debt you are owed. We can also carry out credit checks on your debtors and advise on the most appropriate route to recover your money.

If pre-legal collection fails, what is the next step?

Court action should never be used as the first port of call. Our pre-legal approach has great success in most instances. If the pre-legal approach isn’t successful, though, we are able to escalate matters and take legal action through the courts. The first stage in the process is to issue a ‘Letter Before Action’ which gives the debtor a set deadline to pay the money owed before you follow a legal procedure. In many cases, this enough, and the debt is paid. If the payment isn’t paid by the deadline outlined in the ‘Letter Before Action’ you can move to a more formal legal claim and instruct a litigation solicitor to issue a claim for you. Chasing a debt should never be feared; it is your money. In most cases, it never reaches this stage, so it is always worth seeking advice before commencing enforcement action. If the Letter Before Action fails to resolve your issue, and you still haven’t been paid, the next step is to issue a Claim. We will prepare the Claim Form, Evidence Pack and Particulars of Claim on your behalf and submit these to the court. As a debt collection agency managing high volumes of debt claims, we are able to send claims electronically, which means reductions in both time and cost.

How may a judgment be enforced?

We are able to offer a range of options to enforce judgements if payment is not received within 14 days of the County Court Judgement. Tailored to the specifics of the account, our range of options include: Charging order Order for sale Warrant of control Attachment of earnings High Court Enforcement (for debt over £600 not regulated by Consumer Credit)

What happens if a claim is defended?

In certain instances, if a claim is defended but not complex, we may be able to continue to manage this for you in the debt recovery unit. If a matter is complex, we will discuss all options with you, including moving the matter to the solicitors in our Commercial Litigation team, who are expert in resolving disputes.

Are there alternatives to pursuing a matter in court?

For debts that are disputed by the debtor, another option before taking a legal route is to consider using an independent mediator to help both parties to negotiate an agreement which works for both sides. These are voluntary agreements, so neither side can be forced to adhere to the agreement, which may mean resorting to court action further down the line. Another option may be to use a debt collection arbitrator an independent person who works with both the creditor and the debtor to find an appropriate solution. However, unlike mediation, arbitration is legally binding, so it can be a better route to secure the money owed to you. Please bear in mind though that once an arbitrator has made a decision, it is not possible to go to court.

Home / Expertise / Dispute resolution / Bulk Debt Recovery

Bulk Debt Recovery

If you need ongoing debt recovery from various debtors or for multiple unpaid invoices, our award-winning bulk debt collection service will help you to secure the money you are owed.

Our commercially aware, pragmatic service offers an optimal, cost-effective solution to recovering large volumes of debt as quickly and efficiently as possible with the experience and knowledge of a law firm determined to be the experts of choice for businesses seeking a debt collection agency in the commercial and consumer worlds.

Our expertise

Our debt recovery lawyers and support staff have significant experience in recovering debts for banks, financial and insurance institutions, corporates, retailers, SMEs and individual traders. Our team are experts in the recovery of both commercial and consumer debt, across a range of industry sectors.

We provide a complete a debt recovery solution that is based on maximising recovery potential from every account. We put ourselves in our client’s shoes and treat the recovery of the debt as if it was our own money. This is done using high degrees of technology mixed with well trained staff working to recover the debt whilst delivering excellent brand protection. Our debt team is made up of over 40 debt collection professionals using the most advanced technology and tools. This gives us the systems, expertise and size to offer volume and bulk debt recovery services to a wide range of businesses. Through our subsidiary, we are members of the Credit Services Association and are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority.

If you want a modern innovative legal service – with collaboration, communication and mutual respect at its heart – designed to not only help protect your business but help it succeed, then please get in touch.

We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We operate in a fair and consistent manner, compliant with all regulatory guidance and best practice.

Have you been contacted about an outstanding debt?

If you have received a call, SMS or letter from us please see our customers page for more information.

Pricing Transparency

Our charges

We offer a wide range of fee arrangements for our debt recovery services, which depend upon the profile of the debts you wish to instruct us to collect, and in particular the complexity and nature of the debts (for example unpaid invoices or default under loan agreements and personal or corporate guarantees, and/or whether any counterclaim is anticipated), the number of potential defendants, the number of invoices or debts within each claim, the previous collections history and the likely volume of instructions. Please contact Shannon Leering or Gemma Baker to discuss the options we may be able offer to suit your particular circumstances.

The charges set out below relate to our typical charges for low volume debt recovery instructions for a debt of up to £100,000 against a single debtor in England or Wales where there is no counterclaim. These charges are made up of:

our fees for the legal work; and
‘disbursements’ - disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to other people, such as court fees or fees for bailiffs. We handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.

Where VAT is referred to below please note that this will be charged at the applicable rate, which is currently 20%.

Our fees

In debt recovery work, the legal fees often vary depending upon how much work we need to do to recover the debt. We therefore usually to charge fees for each stage of the recovery process and only charge clients for the parts they need.

Where we refer to charges based on our hourly rates, these depend upon the seniority of the lawyer and range from £150 (for unqualified staff) to £350 (for a partner or equivalent) plus VAT.

1) Letter before action

A Letter Before Action (LBA) is a letter which formally demands payment from the person who owes you money (the Debtor). This is the first step for any debt recovery process before starting court proceedings. This stage normally takes up to 7 days for us issue the LBA depending upon the nature of the debt. The LBA will usually demand payment in 30 days if the Debtor is an individual or 7 days in other cases (in accordance with the relevant Court rules).

We charge for this work on the basis of our hourly rates plus VAT. There are not usually disbursements for this stage.

Indicative fees for this stage based hourly rates range from £750 to £1,750 (plus VAT) and includes:

Undertaking appropriate searches;
In claims for more than £10,000, a preliminary review of the case;
Sending the LBA; and
Receiving payment and sending onto you, where applicable.

Some cases may be more complicated and require us to charge on a different basis and may take longer than usual. Contact us for a fee proposal tailored to your circumstances.

If the Debtor responds, disputing the claim or seeking to negotiate a settlement, it may be necessary to engage in additional correspondence which will be charged on our hourly rates plus VAT, but we will provide an estimate as to the likely costs, depending upon the response received from the Debtor.

2) Issue Court Proceedings

If the debt has not been paid following the LBA, we will draft and issue court proceedings on your behalf. Our typical fees for issuing a court claim are below:

Debt Value	Court Fee	Our fee	Total	Fixed Recoverable Fees
Up to £5,000	up to £205	Indicative fees for this stage based hourly rates range from £750 to £1,750 (plus VAT)	£955 to £1,955 plus VAT	up to £80
£5,001 to £10,000	£455		£1,205 to £2,205 plus VAT	£100
£10,001 to £100,000	5% value of the claim		£1,250 to £11,750 plus VAT	£100

Court fees do not have VAT.

The sums shown as Fixed Recoverable Fees and the Court fees will be added to the claim and potentially recoverable from the Debtor in addition to the debt and applicable interest.

This stage normally takes up to 7 days for us to send the papers to the Court to be issued. Depending upon the nature of the debt, the Court usually takes between 1 and 6 weeks to issue and serve the proceedings. Once served, the Debtor will have 14 to 28 days to respond to the proceedings.

Some cases may be more complicated and require us to charge on a different basis and may take longer than usual. Contact us for a fee proposal tailored to your circumstances.

3) Enter Judgment

If there is no response, we may be able apply to the Court to ‘obtain Judgment in Default’ for you. This means you would have a court order which you can enforce to reclaim your money from the Debtor. Our fees for this stage would be:

Value of Claim	Our Fee	Fixed Recoverable Fees
Up to £5,000	Indicative fees for this stage based hourly rates range from £150 to £1,050 (plus VAT)	£22 to £55
Over £5,000		£30 to £70

The sums shown as Fixed Recoverable Fees will be added to the claim and potentially recoverable from the Debtor in addition to the debt and applicable interest, and other fixed recoverable costs.

There are not usually any disbursements at this stage.

If we are successful in obtaining judgment for you but payment is still not received then we will advise you on the next steps at that time, such as enforcement action and what the likely costs would be (see below).

This stage normally takes 2 working days for us to request judgment. The Court usually takes 1 to 6 weeks to enter judgment depending upon the nature of the debt.

Some cases may be more complicated and require us to charge on a different basis and may take longer than usual. Contact us for a fee proposal tailored to your circumstances.

4) Defended/disputed claims and more complex cases

If a Debtor submits a defence to your claim or the case is otherwise more complicated, we will normally charge you an hourly rate for the time which we spend on your case. The hourly rate depends upon the experience of the fee earner handling the matter:

Fee Earner	Hourly Rate
Partner / Legal Director	£350 (plus VAT)
Senior Associate	£300 (plus VAT)
Associate	£250 (plus VAT)
Solicitor with less than 4 years PQE	£200 (plus VAT)
Trainee/Paralegal	£150 (plus VAT)

Timescales for defended and more complex cases are more difficult to predict. Sometimes matters can be resolved within a matter of weeks but others can take much longer. Contact us for more tailored guidance on your circumstances.

Disbursements

You will need to pay for Disbursements in addition to our costs as described above. In a debt recovery matter the most common disbursement is the Court fee and the cost for these are listed above.

If we need to go to a Court hearing then a barrister (sometimes called ‘Counsel’) is often used to deal with the hearing. This is not common in undisputed debt recovery work. Barrister’s fees tend to be in the region of £750 to £3,000 per day plus VAT. We will however guide you on this as and when such costs need to be incurred.

Other costs to consider

The costs set out above do not include enforcement action such as for bailiffs to go out and collect the debt on your behalf.

Key stages of your case

The costs described above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages a debt recovery process:

Discussing your case with you and, where appropriate, reviewing documents you provide;
Performing relevant checks and searches;
Sending a letter before action (see above);
Receiving payment and forwarding payment to you or, if a debt is not paid, drafting and issuing court proceedings;
If no response is received, applying to the Court for Judgment in Default, subject to the additional costs for doing so as detailed above being paid;
If Judgment in Default is received, writing to the Debtor to demand payment; and
If payment is still not received within the specified timescale, providing you with guidance on the next steps and likely costs.

It would not normally be necessary to undertake other work or incur costs other than those described above. However, we would be very happy to provide you with a more tailored quote for all stages of your particular case once we know about your specific circumstances.

How long will my case take?

Please see time estimates above for the timescales in each stage of the process.

In terms of the overall time the debt recovery will take, if a debt is not disputed, we find that it typically takes up to 20 weeks (in the case of an individual Debtor) or up to 16 weeks (in any other case) from sending the LBA (see above) to receive a Judgment in Default. A debtor with sufficient funds to do so will very often pay upon being sent the Judgment in Default and so matters can quickly be resolved after obtaining a Judgment in Default (within about 2 to 4 weeks after the receiving the Judgment).

If the debt is disputed, defended or enforcement action is required, the matter will ordinarily take longer than this to resolve and involve additional costs which will be discussed with you in advance.

Who will be dealing with my case?

Your case will be handled by a trusted member of our experienced team. We have a number of qualified lawyers in the team as well as experienced paralegals specialised in this area of law. Once we know who will be handling your case for you we will introduce you to them and provide you with full details of their background and qualifications. Full details of the experience and qualifications of our team are available on our website including the types of work normally undertaken.

Regardless of who is working on your case the matter will be supervised by one of our partners. For routine low volume debt recovery work, this will usually be Iain Colville (solicitor with over 20 years’ experience dealing with disputes), Gemma Carson (solicitor partner with over 20 years’ experience dealing with disputes) or Gemma Baker (non-lawyer partner).

FAQs

What can be done before starting legal action for a debt?

Legal action should always be seen as the final step in debt collection. There are other alternatives steps to consider resolving the issue before embarking on a legal route. The first step to recovering the money you are owed is to use a pre-legal approach. We offer fixed fee pre-legal collection. We use email, letters and telephone to chase debts on your behalf. We report back to you at all stages, with a final review report. At this point, based on the outcome, you can decide to take matters further and use court action.

This service allows you to utilise the Late Payment Legislation, so you can add compensation and interest to the debt you are owed. We can also carry out credit checks on your debtors and advise on the most appropriate route to recover your money.
If pre-legal collection fails, what is the next step?

Court action should never be used as the first port of call. Our pre-legal approach has great success in most instances. If the pre-legal approach isn’t successful, though, we are able to escalate matters and take legal action through the courts.

The first stage in the process is to issue a ‘Letter Before Action’ which gives the debtor a set deadline to pay the money owed before you follow a legal procedure. In many cases, this enough, and the debt is paid.

If the payment isn’t paid by the deadline outlined in the ‘Letter Before Action’ you can move to a more formal legal claim and instruct a litigation solicitor to issue a claim for you. Chasing a debt should never be feared; it is your money. In most cases, it never reaches this stage, so it is always worth seeking advice before commencing enforcement action.

If the Letter Before Action fails to resolve your issue, and you still haven’t been paid, the next step is to issue a Claim. We will prepare the Claim Form, Evidence Pack and Particulars of Claim on your behalf and submit these to the court. As a debt collection agency managing high volumes of debt claims, we are able to send claims electronically, which means reductions in both time and cost.
How may a judgment be enforced?
We are able to offer a range of options to enforce judgements if payment is not received within 14 days of the County Court Judgement. Tailored to the specifics of the account, our range of options include:
- Charging order
- Order for sale
- Warrant of control
- Attachment of earnings
- High Court Enforcement (for debt over £600 not regulated by Consumer Credit)
What happens if a claim is defended?

In certain instances, if a claim is defended but not complex, we may be able to continue to manage this for you in the debt recovery unit. If a matter is complex, we will discuss all options with you, including moving the matter to the solicitors in our Commercial Litigation team, who are expert in resolving disputes.
Are there alternatives to pursuing a matter in court?

For debts that are disputed by the debtor, another option before taking a legal route is to consider using an independent mediator to help both parties to negotiate an agreement which works for both sides. These are voluntary agreements, so neither side can be forced to adhere to the agreement, which may mean resorting to court action further down the line.

Another option may be to use a debt collection arbitrator an independent person who works with both the creditor and the debtor to find an appropriate solution. However, unlike mediation, arbitration is legally binding, so it can be a better route to secure the money owed to you. Please bear in mind though that once an arbitrator has made a decision, it is not possible to go to court.