Five stages, in order, with what happens at each one and who carries it out.
You have an invoice that has not been paid, the polite emails have stopped working, and you are trying to work out whether doing something about it will cost more than the debt. This page is the whole process, in order, with what happens at each step and who does it.
The short version: five stages, and the great majority of commercial debts are recovered at stage two. Stages one to three are ours. Stages four and five are reserved legal work and are carried out by RHF Solicitors (SRA no. 324115), on the same file.
This stage costs nothing and it is the one that saves the most money. Three things get checked before a single letter is drafted.
Who actually owes it. The name on your invoice is very often not the legal entity that contracted with you — a trading name, a dissolved company, a franchisee rather than the franchisor, one company in a group where the order came from another. A letter before action addressed to the wrong entity is not just wasted; it tells a debtor you have not done your homework and it can put you on the wrong side of a costs argument later.
Whether it is still in time. A simple contract debt is enforceable for 6 years from the date it fell due. Past that, the debtor has a complete defence. The clock restarts if the debtor acknowledges the debt in writing or makes a part payment, so a debt that looks time-barred sometimes is not — and one that looks live sometimes is not.
What it is really worth. Statutory interest and the fixed compensation sum are added here, not as an afterthought. On an aged ledger this routinely changes the arithmetic of whether a debt is worth pursuing.
A letter before action is a formal, final written demand that sets out the debt, the interest, the compensation and a deadline, and states what will happen if the deadline passes. It is the step that recovers most commercial debt, for a reason that has nothing to do with legal magic: it is usually the first communication the debtor has received that is visibly different from the last eleven.
What goes in it is not a matter of taste. Where the debtor is an individual or a sole trader, the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims prescribes both the contents and the enclosures, and gives the debtor 30 days to respond. Where the debtor is a company, that protocol does not apply — the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct does, and it is less prescriptive, which means the letter has to be judged rather than filled in.
Issuing a claim too soon after the letter, or without the right enclosures, can be penalised on costs even when you win. Courts take a dim view of a creditor who used the protocol as a formality. Deadlines on our letters are set to the rule that applies to your debtor, not to a house template.
Plenty of debtors respond to a letter before action by saying they cannot pay it all at once. That is often true and it is usually worth taking, because a payment plan that is actually performed beats a judgment against a company with nothing in it.
The difference between a plan that works and a promise that does not is what is written down. A plan we agree records the full debt including interest and compensation, states that the concession is conditional, and sets out what happens on the first missed payment — so a default puts you straight back to stage four rather than back to the beginning of the argument.
If the deadline passes and the debt is not genuinely disputed, the claim is issued. Issuing and conducting proceedings is a reserved legal activity under the Legal Services Act 2007, so this is done by RHF Solicitors — not by us. We stay on the file and you do not start again with a stranger.
Two things about the money are worth knowing before you decide. The court fee is added to the claim, so if you win it is recovered from the debtor rather than borne by you. And fixed costs are added on top, again recoverable. The fee scale is public:
| Amount claimed | Court fee |
|---|---|
| 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 claim |
| Over £200,000 | £10,000 |
Claims up to £99,999.99 can be issued through Money Claim Online. Above that, and for claims that need particulars a form cannot carry, the claim is issued on paper.
Most undefended debt claims never reach a hearing. If no defence is filed in time, judgment in default can be requested and the matter goes straight to enforcement. A hearing fee only becomes payable if the claim is defended and allocated to a track.
Winning is not the same as being paid, and this is where most creditors give up value by picking the enforcement route they have heard of rather than the one that suits the debtor. A trading company with vans and stock is a different problem from a director with equity in a house, and the answer differs accordingly.
The options, what each is good for, and what each costs are set out in full on enforcing a judgment.
Sometimes the right answer is that the debt is not worth chasing. The debtor has ceased trading, has no assets, is already in an insolvency process, or is a company shell with a dissolved parent. Every additional step then costs you money to buy a document you cannot cash.
We will say so. It is the one recommendation that costs us the fee, which is precisely why it is worth having from someone who charges a fixed fee rather than a percentage. Where a debt genuinely is dead, the remaining value is usually in your VAT — bad debt relief can be claimed once the debt is more than 6 months overdue, and that is a conversation for your accountant.
We do not promise a turnaround, because the honest answer depends entirely on the debtor. What we can say is the shape: the letter before action gives a deadline of days rather than months, and a debtor who is going to pay usually pays within that window. A claim that is not defended can reach judgment in weeks. A defended claim is a different animal and takes months.
Almost certainly not. Undefended debt claims are dealt with on paper — if no defence is filed, judgment can be entered without a hearing. You would only attend if the debtor filed a defence and the claim was allocated to a track for trial, which is uncommon in straightforward invoice disputes.
That is fine and often helpful — the correspondence shows the debt was chased and not disputed. Send it all across. What matters is that the formal letter, when it goes, is right; earlier informal chasing does not spoil it.
Yes, and it is worth knowing that the process genuinely differs. Scotland has its own court structure and its own procedures — simple procedure rather than the small claims track, a charge for payment before diligence — and Northern Ireland has its own rules and its own Enforcement of Judgments Office rather than bailiffs or High Court enforcement officers. The statutory interest and compensation entitlement applies across the whole United Kingdom. Tell us where the debtor is and we will tell you which route applies before you spend anything.
The letter-before-action checklist, the interest and compensation rules, and the escalation ladder with what each step costs. One email, no sequence.
Tell us what you are owed and who owes it. You get back what the debt is actually worth once interest and compensation are added, what we would do first, and the fixed fee for doing it.