Best Course Of Action To Claim Owed Money

BigA101

Hi there,

I'm currently looking at making a claim for unpaid money against a company I used to do work for. 

I was self-employed (CIS) but worked for this company continuously for around 5 years. I would invoice them weekly and they would pay me weekly. They ended up not paying my wages for a good amount of time, they stopped paying their building supplier accounts, while still expecting us to pay for materials and continue working for nothing, which we did for a while, until it became unfeasible. As I was not getting paid for work I had done, I ceased all further work (December 2019) and stopped paying for materials. Then the owner of the company then stopped sending me work completely in 2020. Refusing to pay me for the work I had done, and refusing to pay me the money he owed. 

A year later I became ill with brain cancer (2021). I had brain surgery and have been having ongoing cancer treatment ever since. By the start of this (2024) year I have started to recover from my treatment and I'm hoping to get back to work this year - I'm currently claiming ESA as out of work sickness benefit - and could really do with having the money that's owed to me, to get me back on my feet when I can eventually can get back to work.

After advise from this forum -

05/02/24 - I sent the company and owner an email, asking to come to an amicable solution to the problem, as I'm still suffering with my health and could do without the stress of going legal with this issue. 

I heard no response.

22/02/24 - I then sent the company's owner all my outstanding invoices by email, including a summary and the total owed. I heard no response.

29/02/24 - I sent the company's owner all my invoices he owes (recorded delivery), with the total, and a warning that if this wasn't paid by 15/03/24, I would be sending him a "Letter before action" letter, and then would proceed with legal proceedings.

It is the 05/03/24 today, and I have heard no response from the company or its owner. So today, I am preparing a Letter Before Action letter to send him by email and post, giving him a final 7 days to pay the full amount owed.

The full amount is over 10,000, so small claims is I suppose out of the question. And I'm wondering if anyone could advise me as to which is the best way I should go about this? I apologise if I've added too much or too little information, but any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

la531983

You need to be giving them 30 days in a Letter Before Action really, follow due process or a dim view could be taken by the court. 

Also consider are you serving papers on the correct entity at the correct address, and if they would have any money to actually pay this.

BigA101

la531983 said:

You need to be giving them 30 days in a Letter Before Action really, follow due process or a dim view could be taken by the court. 

Also consider are you serving papers on the correct entity at the correct address, and if they would have any money to actually pay this.

Thanks @l@la531983, Okay that makes sense. I will do that. I've been sending everything to the owner at his companies address, to which he has signed for all the papers I've sent him. Looked up a home address, but could not locate him. And I only ever dealt with the companies address when I worked for him.

penners324

An LBA is 7 days, not 30.

After the 7 days is up got to Money Claim Online and start the court process on there. It's pretty straight forward 

lincroft1710

penners324 said:

An LBA is 7 days, not 30.

After the 7 days is up got to Money Claim Online and start the court process on there. It's pretty straight forward 

The maximum time suggested for a response to an LBA is 14 days for a business and 30 days for a sole trader or individual.

BigA101

penners324 said:

An LBA is 7 days, not 30.

After the 7 days is up got to Money Claim Online and start the court process on there. It's pretty straight forward 

Thanks for the reply, @penners324 Can I still use Money Claim Online process if the amount is over 10k?

And after your last response and advise to me on another thread, I sent him an letter seeking an amicable solution, but had no response, so I sent him and the company all my invoices, with a deadline by email and recorded delivery and still have had no response, so now I'm drafting the LBA letter. Thanks for your help so far.