Types of Work We Undertake

We offer a range of legal services for businesses which include:

Recovery of outstanding Invoices
Managing payments for work you have provided with your external client
Commencing Court Proceedings to recover outstanding debts owed to your business

There are a number of prospective claims which you could have and the extent of the fees which are payable will be dependent on the complexity, value and type of claim you pursue. Individual fee quotes will be provided on a case by case basis.

The extent to which legal fees are recoverable will depend on a number of factors including:

The value of your claim
Whether your claim is against a consumer or a business
Whether any contract provides that you can recover your legal fees

Funding Options

There are a number of ways to fund Debt Recovery matters and we will aim to provide a funding package for you which is suitable for your particular circumstances. We are not obliged to offer a particular method of funding and not all methods of funding are suitable for all cases. We will assess the most suitable funding method on a case by case basis.

Typically, the funding options we can consider are:

Annual / Monthly Retainer

For businesses with regular credit control matters, we can offer an outsourced credit control package based on a fixed monthly fee whereby we chase payment of outstanding invoices on your behalf within the fixed monthly charge.

Private Retainer

You will pay us for our charges based on an hourly rate set in our retainer. We will provide you with an estimate of fees from time to time but our charges will be based on the amount of time we spend on your matter.

Our standard hourly rates are dependent on the qualification and experience of the fee earner dealing with the matter.

Below is a table of the typical fees we charge for a typical employee of different experience levels:

Grade of Fee Earner	Hourly Rate	Estimated VAT at 20%
Grade A
Solicitors and Legal Executives with 8 or more years’ qualified experience. Heads of Department.	£255.00	£51.00
Grade B
Solicitors or Legal Executives with 4 or more years’ qualified experience. Unqualified File Handlers with more than 8 years’ Litigated experience.	£218.00	£43.60
Grade C
Solicitors or Legal Executives with less than 4 years’ qualified experience. Unqualified File Handlers with more than 6 years’ Litigated experience.	£177.00	£35.40
Grade D
Unqualified File Handlers and other staff with less than 6 years’ experience.	£126.00	£25.20

We will allocate a Fee Earner of a suitable level to your case. So for example, more complex cases will ordinarily be dealt with by more senior staff.

By way of example if a case is dealt with by our Head of Department, Danielle Lightfoot, her hourly rate is £255.00 per hour plus 20% VAT. If we spent 10 hours working on your file, our fees would therefore equate to £2,550.00 plus 20% VAT, totalling £3,060.00.

Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA)

A CFA, or more commonly known as a no win no fee agreement, is where are fees are only payable if your claim is successful. Ordinarily if your case fails then we will not charge you for time. You will remain responsible to pay any disbursements incurred on your behalf.

If we are successful in the claim, then you are responsible to pay our basic charges plus in addition a success fee. A success fee is a percentage uplift which we charge to reflect the fact that we have taken the risk of not being paid at all.

The success fee element is not ordinarily recoverable from the other side.

In some circumstances we may offer you a no win, lower fee arrangement which would be a hybrid of a CFA and a private retainer whereby you would pay us a reduced hourly rate if the case is not successful.

Damages Based Agreement (DBA)

Under a DBA, our charges are based on a fixed deduction from your damages based on a fixed percentage of 30% excluding disbursements.

For example, if your claim is settled or awarded the sum of £30,000 then our fees would be £9,000.00 irrespective of the time we spend on the matter. Conversely if your case settles for £5,000.00 then our fees would be £1,500.00.

The advantage of a DBA to you is that it gives you certainty that our costs are proportionate to the award. The disadvantage is that our fees under a DBA could be higher than under a private retainer particularly with higher value cases which settle quickly.

We are not obliged to offer a DBA and we will only offer a DBA where we believe that the are sufficient prospects of success to do so.

Fixed Fee

This product is where we assert an amount of money to be paid for the service we provide. At the commencement of the claim we will advise you of the amount of the fixed fee we will charge you for completing the service you have instructed us for. The costs owed to the Firm under the fixed fee agreement will be the same amount regardless of the work taken to complete your matter.

There may be additional charges to the fix fee for additional products or disbursements, but these will be notified to you at the time they become necessary.

All fees charge by the Firm are 20% VAT payable, which is currently set at 20%.

Most of our services are provided on a Fixed Fee basis and our Fixed Fees are detailed below. In some circumstances, where your instructions are particularly complex or high value, it may be more appropriate to instruct us on a private retainer.

Fee Earners working in the Debt Recovery and Credit Control Department

Below is a list of our Fee Earners, their qualifications and the hourly rates they charge. Hourly rates are subject to change dependent upon the service provided and the increasing experience of the handler:

Person	Qualification and Experience	Supervisor	Hourly Rate Charged (Exclusive of 20% VAT)
Danielle Lightfoot	Director, Grade A Solicitor, Head of the Debt Recovery Department, with over 9 years’ experience	Abbie Keech, Grade A Solicitor, Managing Director	£255.00
Katie Bell	Director, Grade A Solicitor, with over 10 years’ experience	Danielle Lightfoot	£255.00
Laura Barbera	Grade C Solicitor, with over 2 years’ experience	Danielle Lightfoot	£177.00

Debt Recovery and Credit Control

Key stages

The fees set out below cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a claim:

Taking your initial instructions, reviewing the papers and advising you on merits and likely remedies (this is likely to be revisited throughout the matter and subject to change)
Sending a Letter Before Action and allowing an appropriate period for the Defendant to respond.
In some cases, we may recommend issuing a statutory demand or threatening to wind up a business.
Reviewing and advising on the claim or response from other party
Exploring settlement and negotiating settlement throughout the process
Preparing or considering a schedule of loss
Preparing for (and attending) applicable Court hearings
Exchanging documents with the other party and agreeing a bundle of documents
Taking witness statements, drafting statements and agreeing their content with witnesses
Preparing bundle of documents
Reviewing and advising on the other party’s witness statements
Agreeing a list of issues, a chronology and/or case summary.
Preparation and attendance at a Final Hearing, including instructions to Counsel

The stages set out above are an indication and if some of stages above are not required, the fee will be reduced. You may wish to handle the claim yourself and only have our advice in relation to some of the stages. This can also be arranged on your individual needs.

Estimate of Fees

The funding options and fees required for progressing your debt recovery claim will be dependant upon your instructions at the initial stages of the case. Below are examples of the fees that can be charged.

Annual/Monthly Retainer

This will be dependent upon the amount of the debt owed and the services required to recover the same.

Type of Document	Value of Debt	Monthly Payment (inc 20% VAT)	Total Package Payment (Inc 20% VAT)
All prices below are based upon a 12 month subscription to the service
Debt Recovery Package	up to £1,000.00	£50.00	£600.00
Debt Recovery Package	£1,000.00 to £3,000.00	£80.00	£960.00
Debt Recovery Package	£3,000.00 to £5,000.00	£100.00	£1,200.00
Debt Recovery Package	£5,000.00 and £10,000.00	£200.00	£2,400.00
Debt Recovery Package	£10,000.00 and above	Specific quotes will be given depending upon Employees and work required	Fixed fee to be advised at meeting

Private Retainer

You will pay us for our charges based on an hourly rate set in our retainer. We would invoice you at the commencement of each stage of work and require payment on account before the work is commenced. The hourly rates we would charge will be dependant upon the Fee Earner who has conduct of your claim and the amount of hours required to progress the matter.

By way of example if a case is dealt with Laura Barbera, her hourly rate is £177.00 per hour plus 20% VAT. If we spent 10 hours working on your file, our fees would therefore equate to £1,770.00 plus 20% VAT, totalling £2,124.00.

Conditional Fee Agreement (‘CFA’)

Under the CFA there would be no payments owed until successful completion of your matter. We may charge you during your case under the CFA if you breach your responsibilities. At the end of the case we would charge you for the base costs, success fee, 20% VAT and disbursements of your case.

We will attempt to recover some of these costs from the Defendant and then look to charge you the shortfall owed. We will also cap the shortfall owed to a percentage of your damages recovered.

For example, the costs of your case are £2,124.00 inclusive of 20% VAT, the success fee is 25% of base costs being £442.50, plus 20% VAT, totals £531.00. Full costs total £2,655.00. We then have £500.00 worth of disbursements. The total costs for your case are therefore £3,155.00. We have recovered £2,000.00 costs from the Defendant and £1,000.00 for the damages.

The shortfall in costs is therefore £1,155.00. this is worked out from the full costs of £3,155.00 less the costs from the Defendant in the sum of £2,000.00.

Instead of asking you to pay the full £1,155.00 we have agreed to cap the amount owed at 30% of all the damages you receive. 30% of £1,000.00 is £300.00. We would therefore ask you to pay £300.00 towards our costs and the Firm would write off the additional £855.00.

Damages Based Agreement (DBA)

Under a DBA, our charges are based on a fixed deduction from your damages based on a fixed percentage of 30% excluding disbursements.

If you are successful and awarded damages you pay our costs as the set percentage of the damages.

Fixed Fee

Below are examples of the fixed fees we may charge for certain areas of work:

Type of Document	Fixed Fee	Estimated VAT at 20%
Initial review and correspondents sent chasing the Debt	£300.00	£60.00
Initial review and Drafting Letter Before Action	£600.00	£120.00
Initial review and preparation of a payment plan	£700.00	£140.00

Credit Control

We will provide you with a quotation based on the number of invoices you raise per month and the procedure you want us to adopt in chasing those invoices. We would ordinarily agree to a 3 month trial period to assess the suitability of the fee structure before entering into a longer term retainer.

Disbursements

Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties, such as court fees. We handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.

Typical disbursements may include Court fees or Expert fees. The amount of these fees often depend on the value of your claim and the complexity of the issues.

Below are some examples of typical Disbursements:

Disbursement Type	Estimate Cost	Estimated VAT at 20%
Court Fees (Would depend upon value of the case)	TBC	TBC
Counsel Fees	Between £1,500.00 and £5,000.00	Between £300.00 and £1,250.00
Enforcement Fees	£75.00	£15.00

Duration of Claim

The time that it takes from taking your initial instructions to the final resolution of your matter depends largely on the stage at which your case is resolved. We will endeavour to resolve your dispute at the earliest possible stage. In some cases, debts will be paid within 7 – 10 days of the letter before action.

If your case is contested and your claim proceeds to a Final Trial, your case is likely to take 12 to 18 months, and sometimes longer in complex cases. This is just an estimate and we will of course be able to give you a more accurate timescale once we have more information and as the matter progresses.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

If you would like to enquire about any of our services, call us now on 0113 200 9720 or email us at enquiries@oakwoodsolicitors.co.uk.