Who and how to sue?

[Lance]

If you'd quoted the first line in my post rather than just selecting the one you chose to quote, you'll see I said that.
I was pointing out the costs IF you choose to go down the legal root, and no, you most certainly do not want to go to court on your own, without a solicitor.

unless you've been in court before (a business court not criminal) and know how to conduct yourself. It's feasible to use solicitors for the letters and procedural parts and go to the actual court on your own. I think that you take a barrister into the actual court rather than a solicitor (although it may be possible to take a solicitor).

The chances are you'll annoy the judge if you don't know the formalities required.

[VectraMan]

I've been through the process of getting a CCJ against a non-paying direct client, and I didn't even need to leave the house. It cost £500 at the time, 2/3rds of which I could have got back. It was ultimately a waste of time as the client had no means to pay, but that probably isn't the case with an agent, and an agent is not going to risk a CCJ appearing on their credit rating.

I used a letter before action with another client as well, and that certainly got their attention and they paid up immediately having been ignoring my letters, phone calls and emails for the previous 2 months. £3 well spent.

Lovetts were who I used on both occasions.

[WTFH]

unless you've been in court before (a business court not criminal) and know how to conduct yourself. It's feasible to use solicitors for the letters and procedural parts and go to the actual court on your own. I think that you take a barrister into the actual court rather than a solicitor (although it may be possible to take a solicitor).

The chances are you'll annoy the judge if you don't know the formalities required.

Yup, you're right - it's a barrister for court, but the solicitor to do everything before that.

[Safe Collections]

Just to clarify a few points that have been raised here:

If you have an uncontested claim for less than £10k it is entirely possible to issue and win a claim in the County Court without a solicitor. Judges are used to dealing with litigants in person and will often overlook small procedural issues they'd hang a solicitor for. You can get a very good, in depth guide from the Civil Justice Council here. That said...

Issuing proceedings for a contested or defended claim without sufficient legal knowledge is not recommended. Whilst it is rare to have costs awarded against either party in a small claim it is not unheard of and if you annoy the judge enough you may well find yourself paying for it. This is especially true if you have made no attempt to resolve the situation prior to issuing proceedings, as one of the things a judge will be looking for is evidence that you have tried to resolve the situation yourself.

As for legal/solicitors costs: If you use a solicitor for an uncontested claim you will pay the issue fee and fixed solicitors costs, and these are recoverable in full from the debtor if the judgment is paid.

However, if the claim is defended you will then be expected to pay for the solicitor to deal with the defense. In a majority of cases you will be looking at £100-200 per hour in unrecoverable costs. So it can be prohibitively costly to pursue a low value, defended claim using a solicitor as your unrecoverable costs can outstrip any subsequent judgment value.

In regard to additional late payment penalties and fees, our advice is to stick to the letter of the law and avoid muddying any claim with "admin fees" or other charges that have no legal or contractual basis.

Current late payment legislation states you are entitled to recover your "reasonable costs" in addition to the statutory interest and costs, but this part of the legislation is largely untested. So you should exercise caution and make sure you can illustrate the legitimacy of any additional fees claimed.

As for including a term relating to the legislation on your invoice, it certainly wont hurt but you are not under any legal obligation to do so. It is a statutory instrument so applies to all B2B sales between UK entities, irrespective of if it is announced on the invoice or not.

Plus any terms on your invoice will probably be unenforceable anyway, as invoices are generally issued long after the contractual agreement between the parties has been formed.

Hope that helps!

[Andy Hallett]

At a guess you are either dealing with a very small agency or haven't got to the right person at a big one. As others have said, follow a procedure of invoice, remind and then just use a small claims court.

I would add the step of speaking to the most senior person you can at the agency if you haven't done so.