Can anyone recommend a debt recovery agency

brownhorse

Hello there,

Long time reader, first time poster.

I run a small business renting out a couple of flats. Last year a tenant stopped paying his rent and left the flat in a really bad state. Following on from this and subsequent chasing up of the debt I now have a CCJ against him for around £2500.

As you can imagine this is a substantial amount of money to be owed and has affected my business. I would like to speak to a debt recovery company to see what is possible to do in order to recover the debt.

I did find one, but have now seen on this forum that one of the posters is very unhappy with how they have acted in recovering their debt. So I would like to ask if anyone knows of any good Debt Recovery Agencies / Companies. As i'd like to go with one that someone has had a good experience with. There doesn't seem to be anywhere online where I can find a review of these companies.

Please can you help me.

Thanks in advance

jnrm24

A previous employer outsourced a significant amount of debt recovery and the company was awful to deal with. You should definitely get a personal recommendation if you can. Then talk it through with the company and find out exactly what they charge and what the different stages of their debt collection would involve. Then, I'd get it in writing from them. Also agree what actions you are happy for them to take and which actions you would need to authorise beforehand. Agree how often they will update you and how soon after payment they will forward any monies to you (so they don't sit on it for as long as they can get away with it).

It's a while since I dealt with our external debt collectors but I remember they were prone to making weekly payment agreements with debtors rather than trying to get the debt cleared asap. This meant the debtor might pay £12 per week but maybe £10 of it would go in admin/collection fees every week so we only got a fraction of each payment and the debtor had paid a fortune by the time they'd cleared the debt.

My brother-in-law runs his own small firm - not sure what areas he covers. If you're interested PM me and I'll ask him. I've never used him myself so I can only speak for him as a person

bengalknights

I would say someone like Thomas Higgins should do the job although the fees are quite high, but for some reason large companies including one i work for dont seem to like them and pay up when they receive one of there letters threatening action.

paddyrg

If you have a CCJ, can you ask the court to appoint a bailiff who has real collection powers ahead of a debt collector?

WhiteHorse

Good advice from paddyrg. Avoid DCA's like the plague.

jnrm24

Am I naive in thinking debt collection agencies employ bailiffs? They wouldn't be very effective otherwise would they? And definitely not worth using.

paddyrg

jnrm24 wrote: »

Am I naive in thinking debt collection agencies employ bailiffs? They wouldn't be very effective otherwise would they? And definitely not worth using.

DCA's employ debt collectors - who have no further power than you or I do. Bailiffs actually have the power to impound property for sale to clear debts.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/DebtsAndArrears/DG_10034289

Bailiffs trump DCA's, so use bailiffs if you already have a CCJ.

jnrm24

It's a few years since I was involved in debt collection, but the debt collection firms I had dealings with all had bailiffs. Definitely pointless to use a company without bailiffs.

CKhalvashi

brownhorse wrote: »

Hello there,

Long time reader, first time poster.

I run a small business renting out a couple of flats. Last year a tenant stopped paying his rent and left the flat in a really bad state. Following on from this and subsequent chasing up of the debt I now have a CCJ against him for around £2500.

As you can imagine this is a substantial amount of money to be owed and has affected my business. I would like to speak to a debt recovery company to see what is possible to do in order to recover the debt.

I did find one, but have now seen on this forum that one of the posters is very unhappy with how they have acted in recovering their debt. So I would like to ask if anyone knows of any good Debt Recovery Agencies / Companies. As i'd like to go with one that someone has had a good experience with. There doesn't seem to be anywhere online where I can find a review of these companies.

Please can you help me.

Thanks in advance

I’ve used Harley Legal and Collections in the past.

If they won’t pay under the terms of the CCJ, courts will send in bailiffs.

C

Radsteral

as above if you got ccj you have done most of the job.
Look what the debtor may have first as he maybe pennyless so no worth chasing it, but after the ccj on your favour, you ask the court to appoint a bailif and he ll chase .
i had a company owing me 6800, done the ccj myself, and in the end stupidly employed some company, which i dont wanna name ,
got the money after they sent 1 bailiff, 6800-1700!!

basscadette

I have known numerous people who ran up debts with banks and landlords (having been a student in a former life) and DCA's were a running joke, tbh. If he's working, try and get an attachment of earnings order.