Unpaid Invoices
In today’s business world it is unfortunately common practice for invoices to remain unpaid for considerable amounts of time beyond their specified payment terms.
Unsurprisingly, the aim of the vast majority of our clients is to recover as much of their unpaid invoices (sometimes in addition to interest which has accrued) as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
Litigation?
A party to litigation (Claimant or Defendant) and its legal representatives must consider the potential impact of its behaviour at the pre-action stage of any dispute.
This applies to all areas of litigation: so, rather than simply issuing court proceedings immediately upon a debt falling outside the usual terms (i.e. invoice payment to be made within a certain time period), the courts expect parties to first engage in constructive correspondence pursuant to the relevant pre-action protocols.
Debt Claims: Pre-Action
Where a case is not covered by one of the bespoke protocols – such as in the case of debt claims – the Practice Direction on Pre-Action applies (the steps the court would normally expect parties to take before commencing proceedings for particular types of civil claims). In the case of It expects the parties to exchange information and make appropriate attempts to resolve the claim without issuing proceedings.
Letter of claim: First steps
Typically a Claimant’s first step is to send a Letter of Claim to the Defendant.
The Letter of Claim will contain concise details of the claim and should set out the basis on which the claim is made, along with a summary of the facts and details of what sums are said to be owed, with details of how the sum(s) is/are calculated.
Get in touch
We can help you recover your debts by preparing a Letter of Claim. Depending on the size and complexity of the matter we may be able to do so for a fixed fee.
If you would like to discuss the recovery of a debt you can contact our debt recovery solicitors on 0800 988 7756.
