Debt Recovery

Cohen Cramer Solicitors have the knowledge and experience to recover what is owed to you. We are a business, just like you and we appreciate that a poor cash-flow can have a detrimental impact on any business, and it can be time-consuming trying to recover monies that you are entitled to receive.

Cohen Cramer can help take the hassle out of recovering your debts, freeing up time for you to spend on your business. If any of the following apply to you and your business we can help:

  • Overdue invoices and unpaid debt?
  • Receiving no response to your requests for payment?
  • Confused by the process of taking a debtor to court to recover payment?

If you have commercial debts that you would like help in recovering, please complete our online form which can be found here.

Process of Recovering Debt

There are various steps that need to be taken before a claim gets to court (if payment isn’t received before this point), which is shown within our Debt Recovery Flowchart’. We can offer a simple and cost-effective procedure for recovering your debts and guide your claim through the court process, which is explained in more detail below:

  • Pre-legal correspondence by solicitors  

A Pre-Action Protocol compliant Letter of Claim will be sent to the debtor providing them with 14 days in which to make payment otherwise court proceedings will be issued.

In many cases claims settle in this ‘pre-action’ stage avoiding the need to issue court proceedings.

  • Issuing proceedings for sums under £10,000 (‘Small Claim Debts’)

The most successful debt collection strategies have a formal policy as to when proceedings are to be issued which is followed in all cases.  Again, the simple issuing of proceedings will result in a large proportion of outstanding debtors at this stage making a payment or coming to a payment arrangement. We will draft the necessary Court documents on your behalf and issue at Court.

Please note at this stage a Court issue fee is payable which varies depending on the amount of your claim (the Court fee structure can be found here)

Once the claim is issued and served by the Court, the debtor will have 14 days in which to respond formally to the claim. In the event they fail to do so, we will request Judgment in default on your behalf.

If a defence is received, we can assist in preparing the claim for court for agreed fixed fees.

In the event enforcement proceedings are required if payment is still not received from the debtor, we will provide you with a separate fee quote.

  • Issuing proceedings for sums over £10,000 (‘Fast or Multi-Track Debts)

 There will be a small proportion of disputed and defended cases, perhaps a handful each month, and these will then fall outside the normal debt collection strategy and outside of the Damages Based Agreement we can offer for the recovery of small claim debts.

These cases will often require more time and more input from you as the creditor. In these circumstances, we would be happy to run through the options available to you and agree costs to be on a staged fixed fee basis.

Costs

For the recovery of all small claim debts we can offer a Damages Based Agreement which means that we will deduct a small percentage from the sums (i.e. damages) you seek to recover from the debtor in respect of our legal fees.

The deduction we will take in respect of our legal fees will depend on the amount sums you are seeking to recover. Our fees are as follows:

  • 15% if the sum recovered is £1,000.00 or less;
  • 10% if the sum recovered is between £1,000.01 and £1,500.00; and
  • 5% if the sum recovered by the Client is £1,500.01 or more.

Should you claim proceed to court you will be able to recover nominal fixed fees which will ultimately reduce the amount we would take from your damages. For example:

  • You issue a claim at court for £8,000 in which you are successful.
  • As per the terms of the Damages-Based Agreement we are entitled to 5% of the £8,000 you have recovered which is £400.
  • The court also awards fixed costs of £130 payable by the Defendant which are paid to us.
  • As we have received £130 in fixed costs this counts towards the £400.
  • Only a further £270 would therefore be payable by you to us under the Damages Based Agreement.
  • You would walk away with £7,730 of the £8,000 claimed.

Debt Recovery Form

If you would like our experienced Debt Recovery Team to take the hassle out of debt recovery, leaving you to concentrate on the running of your business please complete our Debt Recovery Form and we will do the rest.