It has now been more than a year since the Debt Pre-Action Protocol was rolled out to a less than enthusiastic reception from anyone who has had to chase debtors.
The new rules meant that debt recovery was about to get a lot harder in cases where people have been able to exploit obvious loopholes.
Fortunately, if you use a reputable debt recovery company to help you recover debts, we will have the experience necessary to ensure you tick all the boxes when it comes to complying with the various hurdles.
If you are not aware of the Debt Pre-Action Protocol, the some of the most important points to remember are:
Your non-paying client now has 30 days to respond to you demands for payment rather than the 14 days they had previously – more than doubling the time they have to respond.
You will need to supply them with a whole batch of information such as information about the debt, what they owe payment for and the agreement you had in place.
You also need to give them information on how they should respond to your demand, a questionnaire about their income and expenditure and a form to fill in where they can state whether or not they wish to defend themselves.
Add to this the 30 days they have to consider whether to defend themselves and you could already be waiting 3 months for payment taking into the account the standard one-month payment terms they will have had from the beginning. In some cases, this will inevitably be longer for businesses that prefer to pay their suppliers quarterly.
Understandably most people are not going to make the process even longer than it needs to be or risk having a claim struck off for not providing the correct information. This is where we can help you recover debt faster. If you are having problems with debt recovery contact us today for advice.