We provide specialist services in relation to large debts owed to our clients.

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We do not undertake professional work in relation to debt claims under £3,000 (except occasionally by special request: please contact us for further information). Other services we do not provide include the following:

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• Conveyancing

• Probate

• Motoring offences

• Immigration

• Employment tribunals

• Licensing applications (business premises)

 

You can instruct our debt recovery team to send out a letter before action by emailing enquiries@bondsolicitors.com .

Or by telephone on 0207 305 7311.

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Should further action be required our solicitors can help you every step of the way, whether issuing legal proceedings or even bankruptcy and winding up proceedings. For more information please do not hesitate to contact us.

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Our Price Information in relation to debt recovery claims is as follows:

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These costs apply where your claim is in relation to an unpaid invoice which is not disputed and enforcement action is not needed. If the other party disputes your claim at any point, we will discuss any further work required and provide you with revised advice about costs if necessary, which could be on a fixed fee (e.g. if a one off letter is required), or an hourly rate if more extensive work is needed.

 

The table below shows the estimated legal cost and costs of disbursements such as Court fees:

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The estimated total cost above does not include your use of Counsel or third-party debt collectors or investigators which all add to the disbursement costs.

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Our cost rates per hour

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Our costs range from £90 - £500 (+VAT) per hour. We do not charge for debt recovery matters on a fixed fee basis. All our fees are on a time cost basis in order to keep costs as low as reasonably possible and on are more accurate basis for our clients. They are more accurate in the sense that we charge only for the actual hours worked on your matter.

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Anyone wishing to proceed with a claim should note that:

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• The VAT element of our fee cannot be reclaimed from your debtor.

• Interest and compensation may take the debt into a higher banding, with a higher cost.

• The costs quoted above are not for matters where enforcement action, such as the bailiff, is needed to collect your debt.

 

Our fee includes:

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• Taking your instructions and reviewing documentation

• Undertaking appropriate searches

• Sending a letter before action

• Receiving payment and sending onto you, or if the debt is not paid, drafting and issuing claim

• Where no Acknowledgment of Service or Defence is received, applying to the court to enter Judgement in default

• When Judgement in default in received, write to the other side to request payment

• If payment is not received within the specified days, providing you with advice on next steps and likely costs

 

Matters usually take 3-24 weeks from receipt of instructions from you to receipt of payment from the other side, depending on whether or not it is necessary to issue a claim and on the complexity of your matter. This is on the basis that the other side pays promptly on receipt of Judgement in default. If enforcement action is needed, the matter will take longer to resolve.

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• We are unable to provide an accurate total cost at the outset, for our assistance to you in relation to such matters. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that each case is different, and we deal with a wide range of such matters of various amounts and complexities. We will always be pleased to provide an itemised estimated to you once you provide us with some of the key information. Please call us or email us if you would like an indication of the costs relating to your specific matter. Thank you. We will not charge you for that initial telephone consultation with us, or our first email exchange.

 

• The basis of your charges is as follows: (i) we can usually provide you with a fixed fee quote to cover our review of your evidence and to provide you with our initial advice; (ii) following the fixed fee stage, our clients invariably seek our further assistance to help them recover the monies which they have not be paid, together with costs (if possible). This further work will be on our standard time cost basis which means Fees are charged on the product of the hours worked (divided into minimum units of 6 minutes or part thereof) multiplied by the hourly rates of the legal practitioners and other specified persons who did the work. E.g. work that took 30 minutes and charged at £150 per hour would be: 0.5 (half an hour) x £150 = £75 (+VAT).

 

• We endeavour to achieve settlements for our clients, without recourse to the courts. This is not always possible and in such an event the highly likely disbursements - that is, the costs payable by you in addition to our fixed fee and/or professional time costs - include court fees, process server costs and possibly Counsel’s fees. In addition, it sometimes transpires that our analysis reveals that, what originally appeared to be a debt recovery is actually a fraud which has been perpetrated upon our client: in such a matter, there may be, in addition, and/or investigators’ fees and disbursements. Smaller disbursements might include, for example, postage. Each case varies. For all these reasons we can only provide reliable estimates of the costs for you when you provide us with an initial outline of your matter, with factual details such as the amount of your claim. We will always be pleased to provide you with this initial estimate, before you have formally instructed us, on a no cost and no obligation basis – as will be your call or email to us to request it. Our initial response to you (by phone or email) will similarly be without charge or obligation.

 

• Please add VAT at the then prevailing rate to all estimates, quotes and rates we provide to you.

 

At the time of providing you with an estimate or a fixed fee quote, we will also provide you with service information on the following:

 

• what services are included for the quoted price or estimate;

 

• what services are not included within the price/estate we have given to you, being those which you might reasonably expect to be included for the first stage of work. In terms of subsequent estimates, once we have been instructed by you, we will be pleased to provide you with itemised estimates whenever you may require and request by email to us, and the same principles just stated will apply equally to these. In other words, all of our estimates will identify what work will be included within the stage covered by those estimates. If there is work, or outcomes, you would have expected to have we been included and has not been so itemised by us, please seek immediate clarification from us by email to the Principal. We will be pleased to provide the further information you request;

 

• information on key stages and typical timescales of these;

 

• publish the qualifications and experience of anyone carrying out the work and of their supervisors.

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Fixed Recoverable Costs in commercial litigation claims valued at between £10,000 and £100,000

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From 1 October 2023, new rules came into force which fix the amount of costs recoverable in commercial litigation claims. In summary, this means that from that date, any claims issued at court will be subject to the new fixed costs regime.

 

The new costs regime will mean that where claims are made for debts or other monies due valued at between £10,000 and £100,000, the amount of costs recoverable from the opponent will be fixed by the court.

 

In practice, this means that before you begin proceedings to recover monies due to you in respect of commercial contracts, you will have some certainty as to the total amount of the legal costs you incur which you can expect to recover from your debtor if you win; and also the extent of your potential costs liability to your opponent, should your claim fail.

 

The amount of these recoverable costs depends upon the claim value, the complexity of the case and the stage the case has reached at the time the question of costs arises.

 

The costs rules apply equally to claimants and defendants, so all parties have certainty as to their potential costs liability in commercial claims.

 

Our costs in these cases are charged on our standard hourly rate basis. These are your actual legal costs which you incur with us and these may be different from the Fixed Recoverable Costs.

 

At this initial stage, we cannot be certain as to which court etc. will be relevant for your matter. We will be able to advise you in detail on this when we progress your matter further.it may be that your matter comes within the Fixed Recoverable Costs Regime, details of which are set out on our website and which we will advise you specifically on in due course. Please note that “Fixed Recoverable Costs” are fixed amounts which the winning party in litigation is likely to recover from the losing side and that these may not match the actual legal costs that party has paid.

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