Bad debts

[Darren@UptonAccountants]

Debt Recovery

We tend to send a couple of straight to the point letters, signed by our "in house" legal exec....i.e. the new missus! If that yields no reward, try we sometimes use these guys www.thomashiggins.co.uk.

[ASB]

You can short circuit the process a bit by going straight for a statutory demand. Get judgement and then issue winding up petition 21 days later if the debt is not settled. A downside of this is that they get published and can trigger other folk doing the same thing. Total court costs are 750 if you actually end up having to issue the winding up petition. Solicitors cost for the last one I did were 400.

However you need to be fairly sure the debt is not going to be contested.

Gaining judgmenet through the small claims route (or count route if the debt is large enough) doesn't actually get you anything. You've then go to enforce it. There are some fairly unsavoury characters around who will buy the judgement off you and they normally have a very good record of collecting somehow.

[Lucifer Box]

One possible alternative is a debt recovery agency working on a "no recovery, no fee" basis. They will charge you a fixed proportion of the amount owed, but at least you know exactly what the fee will be and that if they get nowt back it costs you nowt (unlike a solicitor).

Another alternative is issuing proceedings through the small claims court yourself.

[Mustang]

As per a previous post, my last client is dragging their heals over paying. I have warned them I will be charging interest and they have also said they will not pay interest since i have not discussed it with them. I have now had enough and will take legal action. I have spoken to a solicitor and he says I have a strong case.

Question: is it worth the expense of using a soliciitor or have any of you been in similar situations and done it yourselves. My inclination is use a solicitor to scr*w the b*ggers but I am worried about the cost spiralling.

Any thoughts?!!