If you are a business owed money by individuals or sole traders you will be affected by the changes in the law which came into effect on 1 October 2017. They do not apply to business to business debts.

You can no longer send a simple letter of demand. In summary, you are required to supply certain information to your debtor, including a Reply Form, and to give at least 30 days’ notice before suing. The debtor is given 30 days to fill the form in and return it. If the debtor responds with a dispute or requests time to pay, a further 30 days must be allowed. Where there has been a response from the debtor, a final 14 days’ notice will be required. So in practice a debtor can delay court proceedings by at least 60 days and sometimes more.

For further information on this and any aspect of debt recovery please contact our Debt Recovery Team.