Debt matters

PERSONAL DEBT RECOVERY BUSINESS DEBT RECOVERY ACTING FOR DEFENDANTS /DEBTOR

We can act for you in your debts claim irrespective of:

Whether you are the debtor or creditor
Whether you are a company suing another company
Whether you are an individual suing another individual or company
Whether you are a company suing an individual

The costs below applies where you want to bring a court action against one unpaid invoice worth no more than £100,000. These costs relate to you if you are the Claimant in a matter.

We have two stages of the debt recovery. In the first stage we are expected to deal with the matter without recourse to litigation. This saves both parties and the court, time and money.

SMALL CLAIMS TRACK CLAIMS

Please note that we rarely take on Small claims track claims, Many clients pay us £200 plus VAT for a 1-hour consultation to speak about their small claims matter. Rule 26.6 provides for the scope of the small claims track. By that rule, claims for a remedy for harassment or unlawful eviction relating to residential premises shall not be allocated to the small claims track irrespective of the financial value of the claim. The small claims track deals with cases for –

a claim which has a financial value of not more than £10,000 subject to the special provisions about claims for personal injuries and housing disrepair claims;
a claim for personal injuries which has a financial value of not more than £10,000 where the claim for damages for personal injuries is not more than the relevant value specified in rule 26.6(1)(a)(ii)(aa), (bb) or (cc), being £5,000, £1,000 or £1,500, respectively; and
any claim which includes a claim by a tenant of residential premises against his landlord for repairs or other work to the premises where the estimated cost of the repairs or other work is not more than £1,000 and the financial value of any other claim for damages is not more than £1,000)

STAGE 1 – PRE-LITIGATION STAGE

Where you are owed money, in a bid to try to settle the matter amicably, we will send a Letter of Claim to the debtor asking for payment of your debt. We also ask for interest and other applicable charges. We also give the debtor a deadline to respond to us, it is usually 21 days but, in some cases, we will give the debtor a shorter deadline like 7-14 days to respond to us.

We normally charge £1500 plus VAT (at 20%) for our fees in this stage and you will pay all your disbursements. Disbursements at this time can be payment to the Land Registry where we check the official copies of the register for who the proprietor of a property We might have to contact or use the expert opinion of third parties to be able to quantify your debt. You will pay the expert’s fees.

£1500 plus VAT allows us to communicate with you and with third parties like the court, Land Registry (if need be), with your debtors and/or their solicitors. It allows us to gather information and write a Letter before action. It allows us to negotiate with your debtor to bring in your debt. It does not allow us to start court proceedings for you.

Please refer to our fees section for more information on our fees and your likely disbursements.

STAGE 2 – LITIGATION (INSTIGATING PROCEEDINGS AT COURT)

If after we send your debtor a Letter of Claim, they ignore it, refuse to negotiate or do not pay the debt we will start proceedings at the Court.

Proceedings can be started at the County court or at the High Court. The High Court procedure is different as we will be seeking to wind up a company. If you wish to recover your debt by winding up a company, we are likely to serve a Statutory Demand with or without the Letter of Claim. If we serve a statutory demand after sending a letter of claim, our fees will remain £1500 plus VAT at 20%.

If we start court proceedings, our fees will depend on what stage your case settles at. It will also depend on what court we bring your case in. We can bring your case in the county court. The fees stated here do not apply to cases brought by appeal from the County court to a more senior court. If your case is at the High Court or Appeal court, we will discuss fees with you for work carried out at those courts and you will be paying an hourly fee of £300 plus VAT at 20%.

Some debts can be brought at the County Court and others at the High Court. The cases are the High court at cases that involves companies, where you seek to wind up your debtor’s company.

CASES BROUGHT IN THE COUNTY COURT

Once we instigate proceedings by filing a Claim at the county court the debtor be giving a time limit within to acknowledge your claim or to defend it. If they do not acknowledge the claim or file a Defence, we will apply for a Default Judgement. From instigating your claim at the court until we apply for a Default Judgement, we charge between £750 to £1600 plus VAT at 20%. The estimated times for this stage are within 4 to 6 weeks and the amount of work we will do in this stage depends on how often we communicate with you and with third parties like the court and the debtor. In this stage we made the default judgement application.

If we apply for a default judgement, we will chase the debtor to pay the debt. If the debt is paid, that will bring your case to an end.

If the debtor applies to the court to set aside the default court judgement, we charge £550 plus VAT to £850 plus VAT to prepare for court as solicitors and fees for us to attend court and advocate for you or for a Barrister instructed by us to attend court to advocate for you will range from £800 to £1500 plus VAT for 1-hour hearings.

We have provided the court fees here in the link:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093005/EX50_web_0722.pdf

The court fees at this time are below for convenience’s sake but and they are subject to change. Please in the first instance, follow the link above for more recent court fees

Value of your Claim	Court Issue Fee (No VAT is payable)
Up to £300	£35
£300.01 to £500	£50
£500.01 to £1,000	£70
£1,000.01 to £1,500	£80
£1,500.01 to £3,000	£115
£3,000.01 to £5,000	£205
£5,000.01 to £10,000	£455
£10,000.01 to £200,000	5% of the value of the Claim
More than £200,000	£10,000

SECOND STAGE

Where your debtor refuses to make payment of your debt, your case will progress to a trial.

INTERIM APPLICATIONS BROUGHT BEFORE A TRIAL

It is possible that you need to make applications to the court before your final court trial hearing.

Applications can be made any time before a final hearing/trial. Such applications can be a Default Judgement as discussed above, a striking out of the claim application, application for a summary judgement. If you are the debtor, we can apply to set aside the creditors application e.g because you did not get a Claim form. An application can also be made to stay the case or an application by consent.

TRIAL

If your debt claim cannot settle amicably, the court will list the case for a trial. The court will ask you to pay a hearing fee.

The hearing fees below are payable by the claimant, unless the case continues on the counterclaim alone, in which case the hearing fees are payable by the defendant.

Court Hearing fees

Small Claim Track where the amount claimed is: up to £300 = £27

between £300.01 and £500 = £59

between £500.01 and £1,000 = £85

between £1,000.01 and £1,500 = £123

between £1,500.01 and £3,000 = £181

more than £3,000 = £346

Fast track claim = £545

Multi track claim = £1,175

Note: According to the court rules:

You must pay to the court the hearing fee or file an application for Help with Fees by the date given in the order.
A failure to pay the fee or make the appropriate application for Help with Fees will result in the claim/counterclaim being struck out with immediate effect without further order and the hearing removed from the list

If your claim has been struck out, it will no longer exist. You may, if you wish, file an application to have the claim reinstated. However, please note that the application will itself attract a fee and, if the court permits the application to reinstate, that permission will be conditional on payment of the appropriate hearing fee or application for help with fees.

If you do not pay the court hearing fees the hearing will be vacated, a Counterclaim hearing fee is only payable by the defendant (if counterclaim acts alone). The hearing fee is non refundable.
If parties settle before the hearing fee is due, the hearing fee will not be payable.

Note that your VAT as paid to us cannot be reclaimed from your debtor if you are already registered for VAT. Also note that any interest and compensation that you claim can make you pay more court fees as these can increase the value of your claim, making you pay a higher court issue fee.

OUR FEES FOR A TRIAL

We will charge you a fee to prepare the case for trial. These fees will depend on how long your trial last for, the complexity of your claim, what court your claim is brought in, the amount of paperwork that we need to deal with. In essence you will pay an hourly or fixed fee for the work that we carry out for you. Delphine Akinsete will be your solicitor; she is a Grade A solicitor and her hourly fees are £300 plus VAT for debt matters.

During the second stage we would:

Communicate with you and with the other side, your witnesses, the court, Mediators, Arbitrators etc (as applicable in your particular case)
We will review your paperwork and seek to get more paperwork to support your case from third parties, witnesses or from disclosure by the other side.

We will continue to negotiate on your claim in a bid to settle it before the trial, even at a hearing in court, we will continue to make and receive offers to settle your case.

Draft relevant court papers and serve and file them with the other side, the court etc
Make offers of settlement
Make interim applications at court giving you more definite costing for the work to be carried out.

If you lose your case at any time before or at trial, you are likely to be asked to pay all or some of the other sides legal costs. Even if you have to pay the costs for the other side, you will still be responsible for all of our fees. If we will your case and we are awarded our legal costs, we will give you back the legal costs that you have paid to us.

If we win your case, you would receive a favourable judgement which you can then enforce usually within 6 years. We will bring your case to a close after you receive a court judgement except you instruct us to enforce your judgement.

WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED

The fees above do not cover fees for:

enforcement action at the court including disbursements for court fees or the instruction of bailiffs
an appeal of a judgement by either party.
any additional work not spelt out by you or agreed with us

ADVOCACY FEES

The fees we charge to attend court for you as advocates is different from fees which you pay us to act for you as Solicitors. Delphine Akinsete can attend court to advocate for you, she and you as well reserve the rights to ask that a Barrister is instructed to attend court for you. Please click the link below to see our fees for an advocate to attend court for you:

https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/prices-to-attend-court/

Note that advocates have what is called Deemed fees. This means that in some cases you will lose all or part of your fees paid for we or a Barrister to attend court to advocate for you. For example, if your court hearing is adjourned or vacated by the court (or for any other reasons) within 1 week of your hearing (2 weeks for some Barristers firms), fees will be payable in full.

FEES WHERE THE DEBT IS NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD OR INVOLVES MORE COMPLEX ISSUES

Sometimes your case is very complex and very time consuming. As Solicitors we charge fees based on the time spent dealing with your matter. We will normally charge you Delphine Akinsete’s hourly fees of up to £350 plus VAT and fees for a support staff to help her deal with your matter. Delphine Akinsete supervises all support staff. Please click here for our hourly fees.

https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/legal-fees-at-hourly-rate/

Work carried out in complex debt matters that are not straight forward will be charged at fees that are higher than the above estimates. We will always tell you what fees we will charge you before we start working for you. We will charge further fees after speaking with you and providing you with further costs estimates. Any additional costs will be based on Delphine Akinsete and any support staff’s hourly rates. Some instances when we will charge you further fees will be:

matters change or your instructions change
if the other side takes longer to respond to our letters and we have to repeatedly chase them
if parties agree to stay a case
If we do not hear from you with clear instructions
If the other side makes a counterclaim
If we have to make interim applications to court
If you give us the details of the wrong debtor and we have to employ third party fees to trace them
The other side produces a Defence that highlights issues that we were not informed about
If we have to sue multiple people or companies
If a case is statute barred or almost statute barred (the limitation date for bringing the claim is past or is about to pass)
If there are questions of jurisdiction
Please refer to our fees section for more information on our fees and your likely disbursements (third party fees which you must pay).

Delphine Akinsete will be your Solicitor. She has 22 years experience working in the legal sector. She has 14 years experience as a Solicitor who specialises in litigation and she deals with both simple and complex matters. In 2009, she became the Head of the Litigation department at a previous firm that she worked in. Since then, she has conducted litigation bringing debt recovery claims and dealing with General Civil Litigation.

GENERAL INFORMATION ON FEES FOR DEBT RECOVERY

Note that you must pay all third-party fees. These are known as Disbursements. These could be various Expert fees, Court fees, Mediators and Arbitrators fees, Land Registry Fees, Barrister/Counsels fees etc. These fees are usually quoted for us by the third party just before we instruct that third party on your behalf. We will also tell you how much a third party wants to charge you before we instruct them. We give you the opportunity to choose your own experts. We do not make any referrals to a particular expert.

To issue a claim for money, the court fees are based on the amount claimed, including interest. For Court Issued Claims, please round fractions of pence down to the nearest penny. Example: A Fee calculated as being £1050.5096 rounds down to a payable fee of £1050.50. Above is a link that allows you see the court fees at this time.

Generally, we charge VAT on all of our fees at the prevailing rate of 20% on top of our hourly rates and on some disbursements. Your likely disbursements in a straightforward debt claim which the other party does not dispute would be Land Registry fees and Court fees. No VAT is chargeable on Land Registry fees and court fees. The court fees are payable at stage 2 of the debt recovery process which we have detailed above.

BUSINESS DEBT RECOVERY

If you are owed money by a company, we are able to bring in your debt by sending a Letter of Claim to your debtor.

If the debtor pays the debt after the Letter of Claim, then your case will come to an end. If the debtor fails to make the payment for the debt, then we will serve a Statutory Demand on the company. In some cases, we will serve a Statutory Demand without serving a Letter of claim.

If the Statutory Demand is ignored by the debtor or your debtor does not pay off the debt, we will bring insolvency proceedings.

We charge £1500 plus VAT to communicate with you, with the debtor and with third party in a bid to bring in the debt. That sum will also allow us to draft and serve a Letter of Claim and a Statutory Demand if need be.

LIKELY DISBURSEMENTS

We will need to send a Process server to serve the Statutory Demand: £125 plus VAT

Timescale: Once we serve the Statutory Demand the debtor will have 21 days as prescribed by the Statutory Demand to make payment of the debt.

BRINGING A PETITION AT THE HIGH COURT

We charge £1500 plus VAT to take instructions from you, communicate with the court and with the other side and to lodge a Bankruptcy Petition at the court.

LIKELY DISBURSEMENTS FOR BRINGING A PETITION AT THE HIGH COURT (even if the case is heard in a County Court)

Process server fees – £125 plus VAT
Court fees for lodge the application in court – £302
Official Receiver Deposit – £990
Counsel’s fees – From £1500 plus VAT for 1 hour hearings and this fee will depend on the year of call of Counsel, the location of the hearing and the complexity of the case and the numbers of documents.

BRINGING A WINDING UP PETITION AT THE HIGH COURT (even if the case is heard in a County Court)

We charge £1500 plus VAT to take instructions from you, communicate with the court and with the other side and to lodge a Winding up Petition at the court.

LIKELY DISBURSEMENTS FOR BRINGING A PETITION AT THE HIGH COURT (even if the case is heard in a County Court)

Process server fees – £125 plus VAT
Court fees for lodge the application in court – £302
Official Receiver Deposit – £1600
Counsel’s fees – From £1500 plus VAT for 1-hour hearings and this fee will depend on the year of call of Counsel, the location of the hearing and the complexity of the case and the numbers of documents.
London Gazette Advertisement - £101.52 plus VAT

We estimate that the timescale for obtaining a bankruptcy order / winding up order will be 12 weeks from the presentation of the petition. In some cases, it will be 8 weeks. We will let you know of a new timescale if it is more than 12 weeks.

We can offer you a fixed fee or in limited cases we can charge you a percentage of what your debtor pays towards the debt. In some cases, the disbursements will include Land Registry fees, Expert (e.g Accountant or Auditors fees, bailiff) fees.

See more about our fees here: https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/prices-to-attend-court/

https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/legal-fees-at-hourly-rate-2/

Note:

We will claim interest and statutory compensation on your debt. These may take the debt into a higher banding and in some cases your will have to pay more court fees. Court fees can be seen here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093005/EX50_web_0722.pdf
Your court fees are determined by the value of the debt owed to you.
We cannot guarantee that you will get your debt, In some cases your debtor would be unable to pay the debt.
You cannot claim the VAT that we charge you on our fees from your debtor.

Qualifications of your Solicitor

See Delphine Akinsete’s profile for her experience and qualification. Click here https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/our-people/

She is a Solicitor with 14 years post qualification experience.

WHERE YOU ARE THE DEBTOR IN A DEBTS CLAIM

If you owe someone or a company money you are known as the debtor and the person or company that you owe is called the ‘creditors’.

If you do not pay your debt, you might be taken to court. If you are taken to court you will be the Defendant and the creditor would be the Claimant.

If you receive a Claim letter (also called pre action letter) you should take it seriously. We will be able to consult with you for one hour at £200 plus VAT. During the consultation we will advise you on what to do, the court process and what your chances of success is. We do not always know what your charges of success are as there is an inherent risk with litigation and sometimes you do not give us all the information that we need or you do not have a clear picture of what the creditor’s case is.

We charge up to £750 plus VAT to respond to the creditor in a bid to refute the claim or to accept it so that matters are resolved as soon as possible.

If the matter does go to court. You will be served a claim form and you will have time to respond. The time given you is usually within 2 weeks. We will charge you £750 plus VAT to file a Defence if your case is straightforward. In many events our charges will be £1500 plus VAT if we are going to go on the court’s records.

It is possible that you do not know that a Claim Form has been served in you. If that happens, a default judgement would be entered against you where you do not respond to the claim form. We can make an application to set aside the Default judgement. We can also make an application to strike out a claim. If we make or defend interim applications on your behalf, we will charge £550 plus VAT to £850 plus VAT to prepare for court as solicitors. Our fees for us to attend court and advocate for you as Solicitors (or for a Barrister instructed by us to attend court to advocate for you) will range from £800 to £1500 plus VAT for 1-hour hearings. Barristers fees are disbursements and we will usually confirm your disbursements amount before we instruct Counsel to attend court for you.

If you make an application at court, you will pay court fees. These are disbursements. We have provided the court fees for your application here in the link (see page 19 for likely fees ): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093005/EX50_web_0722.pdf

How quickly your case is resolved will depend on various factors.

In some cases the court would be very busy and it not list your hearing in time.
Sometimes the delay with be from the other party

it might be that both parties decide to stay a case for some time.

Sometimes your creditor would fail to send you the relevant documents before starting litigation taking you to court. If they haven’t, you might be able to challenge the claim. The creditor would usually send you a default notice, Letter of claim and/or a claim pack after a claim is lodged in court.

If your agreement isn’t covered by the Consumer Credit Act, your creditor might not send you a default notice.

We will usually charge you an hourly fee up to £350 plus VAT to act in your matter. If we decide to charge you a fixed fee we will agree it with you. How much we will charge you will depend on what point in the claim that we start acting for you. We always encourage you to make and accept offers to bring the matter to a close. If the matter does not conclude, we will prepare for trial.

OUR FEES FOR A TRIAL

Communicate with you and with the other side, your witnesses, the court, Mediators, Arbitrators etc (as applicable in your particular case)
We will review your paperwork and seek to get more paperwork to support your case from third parties, witnesses or from disclosure by the other side.
We will continue to negotiate on your claim in a bid to settle it before the trial, even at a hearing in court, we will continue to make and receive offers to settle your case.
Draft relevant court papers and serve and file them with the other side, the court etc

If your case is not allocated to the Smalls Claims track, where you lose your case at any time before or at trial, you are likely to be asked to pay all or some of the other sides legal costs. Even if you have to pay the costs for the other side, you will still be responsible for all of our fees.

If we win your case and we are awarded our legal costs, we will give you back the legal costs that you have paid to us.

WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED

The fees above do not cover fees for:

enforcement action at the court including disbursements for court fees or the instruction of bailiffs
an appeal of a judgement by either party.
any additional work not spelt out by you or agreed with us

ADVOCACY FEES

https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/prices-to-attend-court/

FEES WHERE THE DEBT IS NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD OR INVOLVES MORE COMPLEX ISSUES

https://delphinephilipsolicitors.com/legal-fees-at-hourly-rate/

matters change or your instructions change
if the other side takes longer to respond to our letters and we have to repeatedly chase them
if parties agree to stay a case
If we do not hear from you with clear instructions
If the other side makes a counterclaim
If we have to make interim applications to court
If you give us the details of the wrong debtor and we have to employ third party fees to trace them
The other side produces a Defence that highlights issues that we were not informed about
If we have to sue multiple people or companies
If a case is statute barred or almost statute barred (the limitation date for bringing the claim is past or is about to pass)
If there are questions of jurisdiction
Please refer to our fees section for more information on our fees and your likely disbursements (third party fees which you must pay).

GENERAL INFORMATION ON FEES FOR DEBT RECOVERY

If your case is at the county court and a judgement was entered against you at trial

We can act for you in making the relevant application to the court if you pay off your judgement during the relevant time.

We will charge an hourly fee for work carried out at this stage.

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