Debt Recovery Pricing Information

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Introduction

Our Debt Recovery team has many decades of collective experience in delivering high quality work in debt recovery and dispute resolution. We set out information below on our fees for debt recovery, but these only relate to debts of up to £100,000. By its very nature, all of our work for our clients is different and we cannot accurately predict the exact level of fees in all cases. However, we set out below the best information we can in relation to our charges.

Our Team

We have several members of the team who may work on your matter and you can click here to view their biographies. In all cases, they will ultimately be supervised by David Hitchcock who is a Partner and Head of the Dispute Resolution department. Before we start work on your matter, we will confirm the structure of the members of our team who we expect to work with you, including a summary of the work we expect to undertake.

What is Included in Our Services

We set out some information below regarding our fees. In all cases, there will be certain aspects of work which we are likely to need to undertake, which include the following:

Liaising with you and taking your instructions on the matter, including:
- Reviewing the debtor’s legal liability to pay you the debt;
- Discussing the debtor’s financial circumstances and their ability to pay you (regardless of what legal action you may take);
Writing a letter before claim to the debtor, demanding payment in compliance with the relevant court protocols;
Administering payment of the debt or, if the debtor does not pay, starting court proceedings;
If the debtor does not respond to the court claim, applying for judgment;
Once a judgment is obtained, demanding the debtor pay the judgment debt;
Discussing with you what to do, and your enforcement options, if the debtor does not pay the judgment (including the likely costs of such actions).

Our Hourly Rates

We will confirm the hourly rates of the staff who are likely to be working on your matter at the beginning of our instruction. Those rates will range, depending on which members of our team are involved, from £200 to £400 plus VAT.

Average Fees

It is very difficult to accurately predict what our fees will be in any particular dispute, as each case is different. However, based on our experience of these issues, our fees for dealing with the issues we set out above is likely to be:

In low-complexity cases, in the region of £1,000 to £4,000 plus VAT
In mid-complexity cases, in the region of £3,000 to £7,000 plus VAT
In high-complexity cases, in excess of £7,000 plus VAT.

In our experience, there are recurring factors which may increase the complexity of a claim:

A debtor avoiding service of a claim;
Complicated legal or factual issues;
Inconsistent or conflicting accounts of events;
Multiple parties;
Fraud or dishonesty;
A debtor becoming legally represented; and
Higher value debt.

Those cases which are less complex typically include some of the following:

Debtors that can be served, but who do not respond to a claim;
Our clients already being familiar with the debt recovery process; and
Simple factual matters.

Additional Fees

It is important you understand that our fees are not the only relevant costs which you will have to pay. Depending on how your matter progresses, you may also have to pay some or all of the following:

The fees of a tracing agent or process server to locate debtors (these can be as little as £50 plus VAT but can increase to many thousands in complex and high value cases).
The fees of a process server to serve the claim on the debtor (on average these are somewhere in the region of £100 – £200 plus VAT).
Court fees – you will need to pay a court fee to start a claim. This will be calculated in accordance with the size of the debt you are claiming and will range from £35 (for unpaid debts not exceeding £300) to £5,000 (where the unpaid debt is £100,000). There may be other fees to pay during the court process, details of which can be found here .
The fees of a barrister to attend a hearing at court. As with our fees, these depend on the complexity of the case, the size of the debt and the nature of the hearing. For a “trial” (which is the final hearing of a debt claim) a barrister’s fees could be anything from £1,000 to more than £10,000. In most debt claims, we would expect a barrister’s fees to be something like £2,000 plus VAT, on average.
Other charges from third parties, such as Land Registry fees to obtain documents, or fees charged by Companies House.

What is Not Included

The fees we refer to above relate to undisputed debts. It is important to understand that if a debt is disputed at any stage, it is likely to increase the complexity of the matter and result in further work at additional cost. We will discuss those issues, and costs, with you further if those circumstances arise. That includes any additional complexities in court proceedings which may include, for example, “interim” (or ancillary) applications, directions from the Court or appeals. The fees we refer to also do not include costs for any enforcement process, once a judgement is obtained.

VAT

We will add VAT to our fees at the rate in force at the date of our invoices (currently 20%). Where we refer to fees on this page, we intend to refer to VAT exclusive fees and VAT should be added to them. We will also charge you VAT on most third party expenses we incur, but not all of them. For example, there is currently no VAT payable on court fees, but there is on the fees of a barrister.

Timing

The timescale for dealing with any dispute will vary depending on the factors we have already discussed on this page. Whilst a Letter Before Claim demands a response within either 14 or 30 days, in some cases, a compliant debtor may pay up within a matter of days or weeks. In other cases, particularly if a contested trial is necessary, the process can take many months and sometimes more than 1 year, especially if the court system is especially slow. Our experience is that on average those debts that are dealt with before the need to start court proceedings take less than 3 months to resolve and can be much quicker. Those that require court proceedings take on average around 3-4 months to obtain judgment and up to 8 months or more to include any required enforcement action.

Please contact us for a fee proposal tailored to your particular circumstances.