Finding legal help to get money I'm owed

saver_ali

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this - if not, I would be grateful for suggestions as to where to look.

I am owed £9000 pounds by my ex-employer for a redundancy pay-off. The debt has been outstanding for over 3 years.

It was originally a higher amount, and I was paid some of it fairly quickly, but it has been very difficult to get the rest. There have been many broken promises, and I eventually received a couple of partial payments, leaving the £9k outstanding.

I have been threatening legal action for some time, and really feel that I need to follow through on that now. I issued a Letter Before Action a couple of weeks ago.

My house insurer's legal helpline recommended that I issue a Statutory Demand and, if that fails, then a winding up order. They can't take it up for me as they don't cover contractual issues (and the time limit has passed for it to be an employment issue).

They didn't suggest MCOL as they felt that route could take a long time and I have waited long enough. (An ex-colleague used MCOL for a similar issue and still had to get bailiffs involved in the end.)

Another ex-colleague (in an identical situation to me) used solicitors to get a winding-up order and incurred £7k legal fees!

So I'd like to do as much as possible myself - I do have quite a lot of legal experience but not with this type of issue. I would feel more comfortable with a bit of help, or someone to check over my statutory demand before I send it.

Does anyone have any ideas where I can get some help? I don't mind paying for advice, but don't want to rack up a huge bill as my only income now is a small pension.

I tried Citizens Advice, and they supported the approach, but I didn't get the impression they would help with the forms.

The Company Insolvency Scheme (CO.IN) provides free, one-off advice and representation for Litigants-in-Person, but it is operated by Law Students, and only during term time, so closed till October.

Has anyone used Net Lawman, where you can purchase guidance notes for filling out the necessary forms?

Are there any forums like moneysavingexpert for legal issues?

Thanks very much for any assistance.

KeithP

saver_ali wrote: »

Are there any forums like moneysavingexpert for legal issues?

You could try ConsumerActionGroup.

NCC-1707

Google 'letter before action' and 'money claim on line'.

D_M_E

https://legalbeagles.info might be worth a shot

saver_ali

Thanks for the suggestions of legalbeagles and ConsumerActionGroup. They both look like they could be of help.

wesleyad

I'm surprised about the advice against MCOL. Yes you may have to get bailiffs, but you would for any sort of court action wouldn't you? Else how do you force them to pay?

It's going to be an order of magnitude faster than getting a solicitor and going any other route (maybe some of the regulars can advise on timescales, I was under the impression it was very fast)

saver_ali

Thanks for your comment Wesleyad.

MCOL can take six months apparently and if I tried to get any interest, it would take the value above £10k so would move up to a different MCOL track, which takes even longer.

I am dealing with someone who will avoid paying unless forced to, which usually involves going all the way to getting a winding up order.

A statutory demand must be responded to within 21 days, and then I can go straight for a winding up order.

macman

You've already waited 3 years, so why is 6m an issue? Does the company have any assets?

saver_ali

macman wrote: »

You've already waited 3 years, so why is 6m an issue? Does the company have any assets?

Thanks for your comment. There is an upfront fee of about £500 if I go with MCOL, added to which the company tends to ignore them anyway, so I would have to exhaust the whole process and eventually get bailiffs involved.

With a statutory demand, there is little initial cost, and with the real thread of a winding up order there's a chance they may pay.

They have little in the way of assets as they are in software; probably just a few computers. The company has subsidiaries which have a few more computers, but they don't own any property or cars.