Debt Recovery Pricing

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About our prices

The following costs apply where your claim is in relation to an unpaid invoice or invoices and:

The value of the debt is up to £100,000;
The debtor is correctly identified and their whereabouts are known;
The debtor is based in England and Wales; and
The debt is uncontested by the debtor.

If the other party disputes your claim at any point, or enforcement becomes necessary, we will discuss any further work and provide you with revised advice about costs as required.

Where applicable, VAT is charged at a rate of 20%* unless specifically stated. Court fees are not currently subject to VAT.

How can we help?

We set out below:

Information on the key stages of the debt recovery process (including likely timescales);
The total costs for our services (or an average or a range of costs where it is not possible to provide the total costs);
The likely disbursements you may incur; and
An explanation of the services we provide for the quoted price (in respect of each key stage of the debt recovery process).

Each case is unique, and a range of factors may affect the total cost for the instruction and/or the timescale for the matter to reach conclusion.

Our debt recovery team

Our debt recovery team includes paralegals and solicitors who have experience in court procedure and debt recovery. The team is supervised by two partners.

Team member	Position	Hourly rate (excl VAT)*
Sasha Taylor Bolshaw	Paralegal	£150
Amelia Fragola Hunt	Paralegal	£150
Zoreen Aziz	Solicitor	£210
Gemma Horner	Junior Partner	£255
Ed Smith	Partner	£300

Costs

We charge all work carried out on debt recovery matters at an hourly rate.

The figures provided below are an estimate and there may be occasions when increased or additional fees will apply. This may happen, for example, if the matter is especially complex; there are large volumes of documents; or the dispute becomes protracted. We will keep you updated throughout your claim and provide you with information regarding our incurred and anticipated legal fees as your claim progresses

Some fees may be recoverable from the debtor if your claim is successful.

A fixed recoverable costs regime is in place for all debt recovery claims with a value between £10,001 and £100,000. Practically, this means that if the value of your claim is between £10,001 and £100,000, the amount of costs you can recover from your opponent if your claim is successful will be fixed, irrespective of the costs you incur pursuing your claim.

For the avoidance of doubt, please note that the fixed recoverable costs regime impacts upon the recoverability of costs between the parties to a litigation. The fixed recoverable costs regime does not alter our legal charges to you in respect of the services we provide. In practice, therefore, the actual costs you incur with us may exceed the amount you are able to recover from your opponent under the fixed recoverable costs regime. You will be liable for our fees in the sums incurred, in full, regardless of the level of costs you recover from your opponent.

Our Debt Recovery Fees

Stage 1: Letter Before Action

This stage involves an initial review of documents and drafting the Letter Before Action.

We aim to send the Letter Before Action to the debtor within five to ten working days of receiving all relevant information and documentation. Depending on whether the debtor is a company or an individual they will have either 14 or 30 days to respond.

Debt value	Disbursements	Our fee (excl VAT)	Total fee estimate (excl VAT)	Time estimate
Up to £100,000	n/a	£600 – £750	£600 – £750	5-10 working days of receipt of all documents and information

The costs set out in this stage are the costs to get to the stage where a Letter Before Action has been sent to the debtor. They do not include the costs for us to advise on the debtor’s response to the Letter Before Action.

Stage 2: Advising on response to Letter Before Action and pre-issue discussions/negotiations

This stage includes:

Considering any response from the debtor;
Providing advice as to next steps;
If appropriate, negotiations with the debtor prior to the issue of Court proceedings

The costs and timescales in the table below are based upon a typical, straightforward case with limited negotiations. We would not anticipate that pre-issue discussions/negotiations would exceed 5 to 6 hours of time over a period of 4 to 6 weeks.

Debt value	Disbursements	Our fee (excl VAT)	Total fee estimate (excl VAT)	Time estimate
Up to £100,000	n/a	£750 – £1,000	£750 – £1,000	4-6 weeks depending on response from debtor

Please note that our time is charged on an hourly rate basis. If negotiations become protracted, our fees may exceed the estimates in the table above. If it appears we may exceed the fees in the table above, we shall contact you to agree additional fees.

This fee estimate does not include the cost of monitoring compliance with any repayment plan that may be agreed with the debtor.

Stage 3: Issuing a Claim Form

If the debtor does not respond to the Letter Before Action, or disputes the debt and negotiations break down, it may be necessary to issue County Court proceedings to resolve your dispute and seek recovery via the court process.

Please note that once County Court proceedings are issued it can take between 12 and 18 months for the Court to list the matter for a final hearing.

Our estimated fees and anticipated disbursements to issue a Claim Form via Money Claim Online (MCOL) (on the assumption that preparation of the claim is straightforward and submitted online via the Court’s MCOL Service) are as follows:

Debt value	Court fee	Our fee (excl VAT)	Total fee estimate (excl VAT)	Time estimate
Up to £300	£35	£225 – £300	£260 – £335	Within 5 working days of instruction and receipt of all required information and documents
£300 – £500	£50	£225 – £300	£275 – £350
£500 – £1,000	£70	£225 – £300	£295 – £370
£1,000 – £1,500	£80	£225 – £300	£305 – £380
£1,500 – £3,000	£115	£225 – £300	£340 – £415
£3,000 – £5,000	£205	£225 – £300	£430 – £505
£5,000 – £10,000	£455	£225 – £300	£680 – £755
£10,000 – £100,000	5% of value of claim	£225 – £300	TBC on confirmation of value of claim

Stage 4: Judgment

If the debtor does not respond to the claim within 14 days of service of the Claim Form, or admits the whole claim, you can ask the Court to enter judgment against the debtor. Please note that Courts are currently experiencing severe backlogs which is resulting in delays processing documents. Those timescales are constantly fluctuating. Processing times are published on a weekly basis here.

Debt value	Disbursements	Our fee (excl VAT)	Total fee estimate (excl VAT)	Time estimate
Up to £100,000	n/a	£150	£150	TBC at date of submission

This fee does not include the cost to deal with any application to set aside judgment the debtor may make. Any costs associated with dealing with an application made by the debtor will be charged on an hourly rate basis. Your claim will be passed to a Solicitor or Chartered Legal Executive in our Debt Recovery team who will provide you with a fee estimate.

Stage 5: Defence

If the Defendant files a Defence to your claim the claim will likely be passed to a Solicitor, Chartered Legal Executive or one of the Partners in our team. The hourly rates for the Solicitors, Chartered Legal Executives and Partners in our Dispute Resolution team are set out above. We will then advise you further regarding the prospects of successfully pursuing your claim, taking into consideration the information in the Defence.

If your claim is defended, the Court will usually provide directions (a timetable) for the onward management of your claim up to and including a final hearing (trial). The directions provided and the timescales involved will depend upon the value of your claim and which ‘track’ your claim is allocated to.

We will provide you with further advice regarding allocation and onward progression of your claim, and our anticipated fees towards trial, should we receive a Defence.

The following Court Fee will apply if the matter proceeds to a final hearing:

Debt Value	Court Fee	Time Estimate
Up to £300	£27	12 – 18 months from the date of issue to reach a final hearing
£300 – £500	£59
£500 – £1,000	£85
£1,000 – £1,500	£123
£1,500 – £3,000	£181
£3,000 – £10,000	£346
£10,000 – £25,000	£545
£25,000 – £100,000	£1,175

Stage 6: Enforcement

Once you have received judgment from the Court there are numerous options for enforcement, each attracting different disbursements and fees. Should your judgment need enforcing, we will provide you with advice as to the best options for your case. This advice will include clear costs information about each option.

Other information about our costs

Trace agents

There will be an administration charge of up to £150 plus VAT for instructing a Trace Agent (total £180).

Agents’ charges also apply and these may vary depending on the debtor’s location. Should you require assistance tracing a debtor prior to commencing any debt recovery action, we shall provide you with quotes once we have information about the debtor from you.

Instalment arrangements

Where a single lump sum is not recovered in final settlement and you instruct us to receive payments by instalments on your behalf from the debtor, we charge 10% plus VAT of each instalment received.

An administrative fee associated with the cost of storage of papers applies on each file at £40 + £8 VAT = £48.

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