Recovering unpaid debt
In addition to being an IT contractor, I also run a freelance web design service with an ex-colleague of mine. Long story short we built a website for a local company who turned out to be a nightmare client and we ended up taking them to small claims court and obtaining a judgement for approximately £3,000 for unpaid work plus court costs.
However, although we obtained the judgement in January we have yet to receive any money despite threatening to wind up his company. It turns out the owner is a real shady character and has already had to move premises due to not paying his rent - however, he owns lots of businesses and we're pretty sure has plenty of cash, he's just good at keeping hold of it by not paying people! (Oh for the gift of hindsight, we never would have done the job).
So the question is what's the best way of getting some (I've abandoned hope of getting it all) of the money we are owed back. We've ruled out pretty much all enforcement options except these two but aren't sure which one is the best path to go down at this point:
1) Transfer debt to High Court and get a High Court Enforcement Officer to turn up unannounced and seize assets to sell and recover some money that way. Costs £60 and it's possible that the threat of immediate seizure could make him pay up.
2) Sell the debt to a recovery agency and be done with it. Research suggests we may only get 20-30% of the value at best, and I know nothing about the process or how long it would take, but in theory we just get a payment from the agency and can then forget about it and move on.
So the question is, does anyone have experience of either of these and which one would you recommend? I'm pretty fed up with worrying about it but 3 grand is enough cash that I can't justify letting it go, not to mention the feeling that this complete ****** could get away with it and probably not for the first time.
Have already spent nearly £300 in court fees so not mad about even spending another £60 if it's just throwing good money after bad, but if we could get even £500 back it would at least cover costs and go some way towards compensating us for the time and effort spent chasing the debt.
However, although we obtained the judgement in January we have yet to receive any money despite threatening to wind up his company. It turns out the owner is a real shady character and has already had to move premises due to not paying his rent - however, he owns lots of businesses and we're pretty sure has plenty of cash, he's just good at keeping hold of it by not paying people! (Oh for the gift of hindsight, we never would have done the job).
So the question is what's the best way of getting some (I've abandoned hope of getting it all) of the money we are owed back. We've ruled out pretty much all enforcement options except these two but aren't sure which one is the best path to go down at this point:
1) Transfer debt to High Court and get a High Court Enforcement Officer to turn up unannounced and seize assets to sell and recover some money that way. Costs £60 and it's possible that the threat of immediate seizure could make him pay up.
2) Sell the debt to a recovery agency and be done with it. Research suggests we may only get 20-30% of the value at best, and I know nothing about the process or how long it would take, but in theory we just get a payment from the agency and can then forget about it and move on.
So the question is, does anyone have experience of either of these and which one would you recommend? I'm pretty fed up with worrying about it but 3 grand is enough cash that I can't justify letting it go, not to mention the feeling that this complete ****** could get away with it and probably not for the first time.
Have already spent nearly £300 in court fees so not mad about even spending another £60 if it's just throwing good money after bad, but if we could get even £500 back it would at least cover costs and go some way towards compensating us for the time and effort spent chasing the debt.
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