Our Debt Recovery Service for small businesses in relation to Debts up £100,000. Where we refer to "Debt Recovery", we mean the recovery of invoice debts owed to our clients where those debts arise from contractual relationships for the supply of goods and/or services, or where our clients have a statutory entitlement to the sums owed, where the sum owed is up to £100,000. 

Excluded Work

The costs information outlined below does not include any other type of recovery work or any insolvency proceedings. A non-exhaustive list of what is not included is as follows: 

• Recovery of sums in excess of £100,000.
• Recovery of leased goods or goods subject to hire/purchase agreements.
• Recovery of sums owed pursuant to leases, tenancy agreements, development agreements, property contracts, overage agreements, etc.
• Recovery of sums owed under contracts governed by The Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.
• Recovery of sums relating to Property (such as rent arrears).
• Recovery of sums relating to contracts for the design and/or construction of building or engineering projects or contracts for building extensions or refurbishment works.

Please note small business is a sole trader or business employing up to 49 people.

Pricing

Our approach is to agree with you the scope of the work you require and then offer you pricing options wherever possible .

We recognise that different clients have different approaches to budgetary certainty and risk, and even the same client can have different attitudes to different matters. The factors that can influence the range of options we can offer, as well as the costs within each option include: the particular assumptions made for each matter, the type of debt, the timescale you require us to work to, the volume of your instructions, the size of debt(s), your terms and conditions, the nature and location of your debtors, the currency of your invoices, as well as other factors.

The stages of work outlined above can be broadly separated into two categories for pricing purposes as follows:

Please note references to VAT are at the current rate of 20% unless stated otherwise.

Fixed Fees v Hourly Rates v Risk/Reward Sharing v Retainer

Typically, in both categories of Debt Recovery work, we are able to offer clients one or more pricing options for debt recovery work for each stage of work. This allows clients to consider which approach works best. The fundamental difference between the options is price risk - under hourly rates option more price risk rests with you, but under the fixed fee option or retainer option, more price risk rests with us. On risk sharing, the higher charges in the event of successful recovery reflect the risk that there may be no recovery and therefore only a minimum fee.

1. Fixed Fees

You have a measure of budgetary predictability and certainty within the scope, assumptions and exclusions. Most of the cost risk sits with us. If there is a cost overrun, but it is one that is still within the scope, assumptions and exclusions, then we have to absorb the additional cost and we will not pass it on to you. These options do not completely remove all of the cost risk. If there is a departure from the scope, assumptions and exclusions for any reason, it is highly likely that our fee will need to be adjusted upwards to cover extra time necessarily incurred.

2. Hourly Rate

The names and hourly rates of those who undertake this work will be set out in the engagement documents that we will provide to you which shall include a fee estimate for the scope of the work that we are asked to perform. We may also be able to offer a blended hourly rate. With this pricing methodology, we invoice the time actually on the clock at the conclusion of the milestone or matter. On the basis of certain assumptions and our experience of similar transactions we will outline estimates of what our fees may be for each stage.  We will manage costs as best we can. We keep detailed and accurate time records and we keep clients regularly informed on costs.  We cannot rule out the possibility of our fees exceeding our estimates but, in this event, we will endeavour to notify you promptly when this outcome becomes a possibility and provide you with an updated fee estimate.

The indicative cost of each stage of the process will depend on the seniority of the lawyer who is advising you and office location.

Please note that any reference to VAT in this statement is at the current rate of 20% unless otherwise stated.

3. Risk/Reward Sharing

You have complete budgetary predictability and certainty. There will never be any pricing surprises. All of the cost risk sits with us. If there is a cost overrun, we will not pass it on to you, no matter the cause of that overrun. This option completely removes all of the cost risk for you.

4. Retainer

You have complete budgetary predictability and certainty for all in scope matters. You will pay a fixed sum each month and all the work within scope will be covered by that fixed sum. Any matter out of scope is charged for on the hourly rates basis.  We will negotiate the price for the retainer with you and this will depend on various matters including the volume, scope and complexity of the work required. 

Average Fees

Our average fees for work within each stage of the debt recovery process, as set out in the stages of work we do, based on the typical range of costs for each stage, is as follows:

• Stage 1 – Batch 7 day demand for payment letters
  Fixed fee £300 plus VAT plus £27.50 per letter
  Hourly rates estimate £225 plus VAT plus £975 per batch
• Stage 2 – Pre-action work:
  Fixed fee £910 plus VAT
  Hourly rates estimate £650 plus VAT
  Risk sharing percentage 34% of debt plus VAT
• Stage 3 – Issuing County Court proceedings:
  Fixed fee £1,572.50 plus VAT
  Hourly rates estimate £1,370 plus VAT
• Stage 4 – Issuing High Court proceedings:
  Hourly rates estimate: £5,500 plus VAT
• Stage 5 – Requesting default judgment:
  Fixed fee £80 plus VAT
  Hourly rates estimate £62 plus VAT
• Stage 6 – Defended matters
  Hourly rates estimate £25,500 plus VAT
• Stage 7 – Settlement
  Hourly rates estimate £7,750 plus VAT
• Stage 8 -  Enforcement action:
  Fixed fee £295 plus VAT
  Hourly rates estimate £250 plus VAT
• Stage 9 – Other work
  Hourly rates estimate per item of other work £1,500 plus VAT